


Smashing Pumpkins

by kitsunealyc



Series: The Battle of the Girl Groups [1]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: First Time, M/M, Post-Canon, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:31:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunealyc/pseuds/kitsunealyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the weeks following the dramatic events of the Culture Fair, the Hosts sponsor a Battle of the Girl Groups as a way of getting things back to normal. But the status quo has been shaken. Change is inevitable--even in the brotherly love shared by the Hitachiin twins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The spell had broken. The carriage had become a pumpkin, and yet somehow the Host Club's friendships had survived. And in the days following the Culture Fair, the Hitachiin Twins' 'Brotherly Love' act doubled in followers and demand.

Part of it was novelty. "Oh, we can tell you apart now!" each guest would exclaim, or some variation thereof. The 'Which One is Hikaru?' game became the most played game at the club. With Hikaru's sprained wrist immobilized in a black cast of printed plastic and bound in a sling, everyone was a winner.

Kyouya smiled, light gleaming off his glasses, asked when the cast was due to come off, and booked the Hitachiin twins in fifteen minute increments until the beginning of December. Girls often booked in pairs, but now they tripled and quadrupled up on appointments just to get in some time.

Part of their popularity was due Tamaki's distraction. He'd finally admitted to himself that his feelings for Haruhi weren't fatherly, but he didn't seem to know what to _do_ with that, and it affected the attention he was paying to his other Princesses. It didn't help that as far as the rest of Ouran Academy was concerned, Fujioka Haruhi was still a boy. She was still seeing clients, though no longer out of obligation. Kyouya had looked a little green when he walked out of negotiations for her salary.

"I thought you told Tamaki that you loved being in the Host Club," he grumbled into his notebook.

"I do," Haruhi said cheerfully, hands behind her back as she leaned in to catch Kyouya's grumpy, downcast gaze. "But I'm not going to let you profit off my free labor. Becoming a lawyer is expensive. I'm not an _idiot_ , senpai."

Kyouya smiled evilly and cast a look in Tamaki's direction. Tamaki, who was pretending to pay very dedicated attention to his guests in between puppydog glances at Haruhi. "I suppose it's good that one of you isn't," he said.

But most of the Twins' new popularity was because Hikaru and Kaoru had, by unspoken agreement, decided to play up Hikaru's injury by reversing their usual seme/uke dynamic.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I'm such an oaf." The teapot clattered as Hikaru set it down, expression somewhere between fury and tears—the latter courtesy of a surreptitious application of drops. Spilled tea spread in a growing pool across the table. The crowd of girls held their hands to their cheeks, leaned forward, eyes almost as wide and glistening as Hikaru's. They were primed to recognize the entry to a brotherly love bit. Their sighs were Pavlovian.

"I'm so useless!" Hikaru cried, looking away from the spilled tea and the entirely unoffended guests. He cradled his right arm—still in its sling—close to his chest.

"Don't say that, Hikaru," Kaoru said, stepping into the improv as easily as he slipped his arms around his twin's shoulders. He lifted Hikaru's chin. The tears had fallen. Kissing them away would be taking the act just a bit too far, so Kaoru wiped them away with his thumb. "You're not useless to me. I need you."

"I can't even pour tea without spilling. I should just stop pretending that I can still do this." Hikaru's lower lip tremble was a particularly good touch. Kaoru had a moment of deja-vu before he realized it was _his_ lip tremble on Hikaru's face. Hikaru wasn't just playing uke, he was copying Kaoru's uke act.

Pretending, indeed. Kaoru had to bite his lip to keep from laughing, which had their guests sighing and squeeing with swelling moe as they speculated what urges Kaoru was _really_ stifling with such self-inflicted pain.

"Why don't you pretend that my arm is yours, and I'll pour the tea for you?"

"You mean, like those games we played when we were little?" Hikaru whispered as Kaoru adjusted them on the sofa. "Except, it wasn't a teapot you were holding then."

"Shh." Kaoru whispered against Hikaru's cheek. He'd moved behind Hikaru, his back pressed to his twin's, his chin resting on Hikaru's shoulder, and his arm through the straps of Hikaru's sling.  "We promised never to talk about... that." He picked up the teapot and poured. It was probably twice as awkward as Hikaru's left-handed pouring, but that wasn't the point.

Kaoru spent the rest of the afternoon pressed against Hikaru's back, pouring tea for every guest of the Host Club. By the end of the day, Kyouya was asking if the cast could be made a permanent feature. All in all, a successful bit.

 

***

 

"I don't think I'm going to be able to do that tea pouring thing every day," Kaoru grumbled, throwing both their book bags onto the floor before collapsing on their bed. "My back is killing me."

"I'd offer to help, but..." Hikaru struggled free of his sling straps and let the contraption fall to the floor. "Mother's chiropractor is in my frequent caller list." Hikaru's cell phone landed on the bed next to Kaoru's head. His jacket and tie landed across Kaoru's face. "I'm going to take a shower."

Kaoru pushed the fabric off his face and lifted his head. Hikaru was already in the sink room, struggling with his shirt to get it off over the streamlined cast. "Do you need help?" Kaoru offered. It wasn't _that_ strange an offer. No different than scrubbing each other clean at an onsen or washing each other's hair after an experiment with bleach and color. And Hikaru was injured. Kaoru's offer made sense. It wasn't crossing a line in the playing pretend that was their brotherly love act. That pumpkin was secure, would always be secure because Kaoru would never threaten it, and Hikaru...

Hikaru didn't even know it was there.

Hikaru paused, shirt dangling from his cast. He shook his head. "No. I think I can manage." He entered the bathroom and shut the door softly.

Kaoru laid back, listening to the shower water run, to the shift in rhythm that was Hikaru getting in. He took a too-deep breath and his back twinged, so he grabbed the phone sitting by his head and called the chiropractor.

***

"Everyone, gather 'round. I have the most _amazing_ idea to share," Tamaki announced as they were closing down and cleaning up from another Host Club gathering.

It was day five of Hikaru's sprained wrist, and the novelty of their swapped roles had begun to pall for Kaoru. At first it had been a challenge to play seme to Hikaru's uke. Then it had become a competition to see who could make the other laugh with their over-the-top impressions of each other's stock behaviors and expressions. It had been... fun. Like back the old days when it was just them, and they deliberately set out to confound people rather than letting their individual personalities show.

But the initial shine had worn off. Kaoru wasn't the outgoing one, the leader, the instigator. Hikaru's cockiness didn't come as naturally to Kaoru. And having to take the lead all the time was blurring some of the other lines that Kaoru depended on to keep his brother close. Close, but not _too_ close.

Hikaru was feeling it too. He didn't show it at school, didn't speak about it at home, didn't need to. His uncharacteristic pensiveness was communication enough. They both needed a change before they did something stupid to alleviate their boredom.

Tamaki-dono, bless his impulsive heart, could always be depended on to create amusing distractions.

"What it is, tono?" Hikaru asked, draping across the back of the couch they were sitting on. He'd cited his arm for why he couldn't help clean up, and of course Kaoru needed to keep him company. The disgusted look Haruhi had given them both had been priceless.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say it involves cosplay," Kaoru said, draping next to Hikaru.

Hikaru made a face. "Everything we do involves cosplay."

"Can this one have sweets?" Honey said from where he was doing his part to clean up—at a table, making sure they didn't have any leftover cake to contend with. He looked up at Mori, who had gathered a truly impressive stack of dishes. "Everything's better with sweets, right Takashi?"

"Yes," Mori said, to nobody's surprise. He'd agree if Honey said the sky was made of blue frosting and spun sugar clouds.

"Remarkably, the current plan involves neither sweets nor cosplay," Kyouya said, opening up his laptop. The little pineapple on the lid glowed white as he typed away. "However, I've sent out a preliminary survey to some of our most dedicated clientele, and there is quite a bit of interest from—"

"No, no, no! You are all _ruining_ my announcement. Have you no sense of the proper _drama_ of a thing?" Tamaki flopped back onto one of the couches, one hand dragging limply on the floor in a demonstration of the proper drama of abject despair.

"What's your announcement, Tamaki-senpai?" Haruhi drawled in that tone that said she might care less, except that she cared enough to humor Tamaki.

And like water on a wilting bloom, her deadpan encouragement revived him. Tamaki hopped to his feet, spinning and dancing around the room with expansive gestures. "As you all know, recent disruptions have left our Princesses feeling neglected and un-special."

"Neglected?" Hikaru muttered, ostensibly to Kaoru, but pitched for everyone to hear. "How many did we have today? Twenty?"

"Yeah, there's only one person around here who's been neglecting his guests," Kaoru said. "Also, is un-special a word?"

"SILENCE!" Down came the finger and glare of doom, and then, just as quickly, Tamaki shifted modes again, flipping his blond hair and gazing forlornly at the ceiling. "I have spent all my brainpower to devise a way to show our Princesses that we are here for _their_ pleasure—"

"Can't have been much, then," Haruhi muttered, earning an approving grin from Hikaru and Kaoru both.

Tamaki ignored her, or didn't hear. He was in the zone. "And I have stumbled on the most brilliant solution. We will have..." forgetting he was playing to a heckling crowd, Tamaki paused for effect, "... A battle of the Girl Groups!"

Silence fell. And stayed fallen. And stayed some more. Tamaki's arms had to be getting tired from being held out in that expansive gesture for so long.

Finally, Hikaru broke the tableau. "So... we're dressing in drag?"

"I though Kyouya said we weren't cosplaying," Kaoru added.

"And didn't we already do drag last year? I don't know. Sound like you're jumping the shark, tono." Hikaru yawned and rolled off the couch. Kaoru followed, grabbing their book bags.

"No! We're not going to be in drag. It's the girls!" Tamaki stopped them both by draping his arms over their shoulders. "They're going to be in drag!" He looked back and forth between them, smiling hopefully.

Kaoru didn't have to see it to know that Hikaru was giving Tamaki the same skeptical look that Kaoru was giving him. If he understood correctly, it actually _did_ sound like a fun idea, but...

"Girls aren't in drag when they dress as girls. You know that, right tono?" Hikaru drawled.

And how could Kaoru _not_ twist the knife that Hikaru had planted? Playing with Tama-chan was just too much fun. "Yeah. Unless you want to make them all Hosts like Haruhi. Or... " He gave Hikaru a questioning smirk and got glint-eyed encouragement in return. "Maybe you want to set up a Takarazuka club like they have at Lobelia."

That did it. Tamaki released them both and reeled away, heart clutched in horror. "Nooo!" he moaned. "Not Takarazuka!" He sank into his despair corner. "Girl Groups. With proper. Girls."

"Not to sound completely clueless, but what exactly does he mean?" Haruhi asked. Tamaki moaned in deeper horror, which covered up the beginnings of a rumble.

But not for long. Nothing could disguise that powerful motor for long. Nor could anything muffle Renge's cackle as she emerged in what Kaoru thought he recognized as a BKA84 cosplay.

"The Battle of the Girl Groups! All-female pop groups have been an entertainment staple for at least half a century, but the past few decades have seen the emergence of the IDOL SENGOKU JIDAI, where groups are formed, groomed, and armored in complementary costumes for optimal cuteness! Then they're sent into the stage arena to battle it out in bloody harmonics and viciously cute dance moves to see which one will be the next Faster. The next Cologne. The next BKA84! Add the allure of yaoi between the managers, and you've got the perfect recipe for a moe-EXPLOSION!!"

"We'll doing our own version of Kouhaku," Kyouya explained, when both Tamaki and Renge's explanation left Kaoru and the others frowning in confusion. "The hosts will split into three teams—Red, White, and Green. Over the next few weeks, you'll act as managers to create different girl groups from among our interested clients. The managers will be in charge of the group's persona, theme, costumes, choreography, and music, and we'll have the competition in the great hall before everyone leaves for winter break."

"And let me guess," Haruhi said dryly. "You'll be charging the girls for the opportunity to be in a group."

Kyouya pushed his glasses up. "No. That would be crass." He paused just long enough for Haruhi's smirk to waver in doubt before smirking himself. "We will, however, be making a documentary of the selection process, rehearsals, and competition. Students may purchase as many copies as they want for a reasonable price. Given that most of the students will be going home to large family gatherings over winter break, I suspect that will be... quite a few copies per student."

Kaoru suspected that Kyouya already had firm estimates on actual sales numbers. Possibly even pre-orders.

Tamaki had roused himself from his mopes. "And don't forget the prize! The ladies of the winning team get a super romantic Christmas Eve date with the hosts of their choice!"

"Yes, I've already placed orders for the KFC," Kyouya added.

"Takashi and I can be a team!" Honey said, bouncing excitedly. "And Usa-chan! The white team, like frosting! We can have our group wear bunny ears and eat cake while they sing!" He raised Usa-chan high and danced around happily.

"I think I saw something like that online," Hikaru muttered to Kaoru.

"Yes, I rather suspected you two would be a team. And the Hitachiin brothers?" Kyouya asked.

"We'll take Green," Kaoru said in time with Hikaru. Mock him they might, but Tamaki's ideas were outrageous enough that they were never boring.

Tamaki was back in Club King mode. "And Haruhi and I will be the Red team!"

"Oh no!" Haruhi dodged before Tamaki could sling his arm around her shoulder. Kaoru wondered if she was afraid he might charm her into accepting. "I don't know anything about girl groups or costuming or... You saw me in that Zuka Club show, senpai. I can't even sing. You're better off on your own." She shouldered her book bag and backed toward the door. "Besides, some of us have to study. I'll help anyone who needs it, but I'm strictly a floater for this crazy idea."

Tamaki stared forlornly at the door as Haruhi slipped out and closed it. "She doesn't want to be on my team? But I was going to make her my star. My muse." One lonely tear slipped down his face—no drops needed. It trembled like a diamond on his cheek. "I don't understand. I though after... the Culture Fair... that we..."

Kaoru took pity on Tamaki, if only because he suspected nobody else would. "Haruhi's not like most of our clients, tono. You heard her. You... did hear her, right? She doesn't dream of being in a girl group or being anyone's muse. She wants to study hard and be a lawyer like her mother." Kaoru laid a hand on Tamaki's shoulder.

Hikaru's hand joined Kaoru's. "Kaoru's right. If you want to understand someone, the best thing to do is listen. Have you tried listening to what Haruhi wants?"

Kaoru stared at Hikaru. The words, the gesture... it was akin to what they'd been doing all week, playing at being each other. Except it seemed like Hikaru was better at being Kaoru than Kaoru was at being Hikaru.

Tamaki sighed and gave them both a wan smile—no theatrics, just the sad, lonely boy who dwelled beneath them. "But whose team will I be on? It's no fun if I'm on my own."

"Not ours!" Kaoru and Hikaru said in tandem, pulling back. Empathy was one thing, but it only extended so far.

"You can join us, Tama-chan!" Honey chirped. "You like bunnies and cake, right?"

"Er..." Tamaki shot a desperate, pleading look at Kyouya.

The Shadow King sighed and closed his laptop. "Fine. I hadn't been planning on competing, but I suppose I'll be on a team with you, Tamaki."

"Oh, thank you Kyouya!" Tamaki's pout broke into a smile, and it was like all sunlight had returned to the world.

"After all," Kyouya muttered, "someone has to keep an eye on you to curb your excesses."

Tamaki ignored him and gave Honey a solemn bow. "Thank you for your offer, Haninozuka-san, but I can't leave Kyouya without a partner. He'd be lost without me."

"I understand, Tama-chan," Honey said, casting a shrewd glance back at Mori that suggested maybe his offer had been as calculated as Kyouya's.

 

***

 

Kaoru plotted with Hikaru the entire drive home. They'd leverage their current popularity to get their pick of girls who resembled each other, and they'd use costumes that were not-quite-the-same, cribbed from their mother's couture collection. They plotted in whispers, ginger heads together. Quiet. Unbridled enthusiasm was for later, when they were alone. It wasn't the kind of thing they showed to anyone else. That habit was too ingrained even for Haruhi or the other hosts to break.

But the moment they were in their room, dropping book bags, shedding school coats, loosening ties, Kaoru turned a wide smile on Hikaru. "This is going to be fun. It's getting back to how it used to be before the Culture Fair. But different. Better. Now that Tamaki isn't being such an idiot."

Hikaru's return smile was wan. Tired. He struggled with the straps of his sling. "Yeah. I guess. At least, it's different. It'll be fun to have so many new toys to play with." He left the sling where it dropped and headed for the bathroom, like he had every day since the Culture Fair.

 _People aren't toys!_ Kaoru wanted to shout after Hikaru. Instead, he said, "Do you need help?" as he had every day since the Culture Fair.

"No. I can manage," Hikaru said, and shut the door between them.

 

***

 

This time, Kaoru was determined to study rather than monitor the fall of water to make sure his twin didn't need him. He spread his books out on the bed and slipped on noise-cancelling headphones. No music, but it helped cocoon him in his own world.

Which meant he jumped when a dripping wet finger tapped his cheek.

He pulled the headphones down around his neck and leaned back. Hikaru stood above him, hair spiked auburn from the water, body still flushed with heat from the shower, towel tucked like a sarong around his hips. The black plastic cast was a strange, alien blot separating them, making them different.

Hikaru was studying the pile of books and notes rather than looking at Kaoru, which raised all sorts of alarm bells. "Hikaru?" Kaoru asked. He'd known something was wrong. The most distressing part of all of this was that he couldn't figure out what.

"Did you mean it?" Hikaru asked.

Even worse. "Mean what?" Kaoru responded. He should know what Hikaru meant without asking. He should know, and he didn't.

"About helping me."

Kaoru expelled a breath, sagged in on himself with relief. Was that all?" "Yes. Of course."

"Even if it's a little weird?"

"Whatever. It's no different from going to an onsen. Come on." Kaoru shoved his books aside and hopped off the bed, heading for the bathroom. He paused when Hikaru didn't follow.

"What if it's a lot weird?"

The dread was returning, along with a niggling suspicion. "How weird?" Kaoru asked.

Hikaru raked his good hand through his hair and sat on the bed. He still wouldn't look Kaoru in the eye. "You may have noticed that I've been a little out of sorts this past week."

"Yeah." With good reason: the sprained wrist, the cast, Haruhi out of reach, and the strangeness of their reversed roles. That last alone had been enough to unsettle Kaoru.

"It's because I..." Hikaru rolled his eyes in self-disgust and met Kaoru's questioning look. "I can't masturbate, okay?"

Kaoru coughed. "Wh-what?"

"I usually... you know. Daily. Sometimes after school, sometimes before bed. I'm not a morning person like some people."

Kaoru's lips twitched at that. Of course Hikaru knew his tendencies as well as he knew Hikaru's. It was one of those things they didn't bother to mention because it was unremarkable. Just one of the spaces they cleared for each other without thinking. "So what's the problem? You've got another hand."

"Yes, and it's all wrong and awkward as hell and I haven't been able to... " Hikaru's pitch rose with his frustration. "Every day I just end up more... annoyed."

"Well what do you expect me to do about it?" Kaoru's rising pitch matched Hikaru's, because he already knew the answer to that question.

And Hikaru knew he knew. "It wouldn't be... it'd be like... the teapot. Pretend. You know, like we've been doing at the club. I can pretend it's my hand, and you can pretend..." Hikaru's words failed as he ran into the limit of his argument. He sighed and mussed his hair again. "It won't _mean_ anything."

 _Unless you let it_ was left unspoken, and there was the oblivious, self-involved Hikaru that Kaoru knew and loved. It was almost a relief to have it all click into familiar patterns. Hikaru was frustrated because Hikaru couldn't get off properly, so Hikaru was acting weird.

In his relief, Kaoru let himself be reckless. "Fine. Lose the towel." He went into the sink room to fetch lube and a hand towel. "And if you say anything about my technique, you'll be left-handing it permanently."

"Okay." Hikaru said, oddly meek. He'd tossed his towel aside and was sitting cross-legged on the bed. Nothing new to see here. It wasn't like Kaoru was looking at himself—Kaoru knew his body well enough to recognize the minute differences in Hikaru that everyone else missed. But he'd also seen his brother naked often enough that seeing him now was no big deal. No big deal.

_Unless you let it be._

Kaoru shook his head to dislodge the thought. Hikaru was right. This was just pretend, like all the pretend that had come before. Some of it had been awkward at first—the flirting, the teasing touches—but it was all a game. No lines were being crossed. As long as it remained a game, they could pretend they were playing within the rules.

Kaoru tossed his headphones aside and sat with his back against the headboard, legs splayed out. After the week of tea-pouring, he refused to get a backache from jerking off his brother.

"Thanks for this, Kaoru," Hikaru said, shifting to settle between Kaoru's legs. He relaxed back, head resting on Kaoru's shoulder. His wet hair tickled, sending a shiver Kaoru felt all the way to his groin.

"Y-yeah." Kaoru cleared his throat. "Yeah. Just remember you owe me one if I ever sprain my wrist." He lubed up his right hand and grabbed his brother's cock before he could lose his nerve.

Hikaru yelped, ass slamming hard into Kaoru's crotch. "Ow! Do you have to be so—"

"One word about my technique," Kaoru warned through gritted teeth.

"Right. Right. Sorry."

Kaoru took a deep breath. He hadn't really been thinking. Hikaru was still semi-flaccid. He was right to complain. Kaoru released his grip, letting Hikaru's cock loll against his thigh. With one finger, Kaoru traced the shape of it, the hood of foreskin, the soft length down to Hikaru's ballsack, still loose and wrinkled. Smooth, because they'd both been using depilatory creams since almost before they needed them. Kaoru cradled him gently, then slid back up to his cock, using his palm this time, pressing, coaxing. It wasn't unlike when they were young, games of you-show-me-yours.

_This is nothing like that._

Kaoru closed his eyes briefly and took another breath, two. He matched his breathing to Hikaru's, and that helped calm the small surge of panic. By the time he opened his eyes, Hikaru's cock was stirring to life with little nods and bobs. Kaoru couldn't hold back the nervous giggle that escaped. "Dance little Hika-chan, dance!" he sang, tapping the reddened head just peeking out of the foreskin.

"If you're going to make fun," Hikaru grumbled, shifting restlessly.

Kaoru wrapped an arm around his brother's waist in case he meant to move away. "I'm not. I won't. I'm sorry, Hikaru. I'll do it right."

"Just... stop playing around. It's been a week."

Kaoru suspected Hikaru had swallowed some of Tamaki's penchant for drama. A week wasn't that big a deal. But he reigned in his nervous giggles and concentrated on doing this correctly, since he'd agreed to do it at all.

This time, when Kaoru took Hikaru in hand, he was careful with his grip. He rolled down the foreskin and palmed the head, concentrating just on that area. When he did this for himself, he pretended it was like the first moments of penetration—teasing little dips into something warm and wet and tight. He wondered what Hikaru pretended. What he was pretending now.

Better not to wonder that. He moved his grip down, keeping it loose enough that, with the lube, he could glide his hand easily up and down. Kaoru watched with hypnotized fascination as the head of Hikaru's cock peeped out again and again from his fist. A drop of precum emerged, and Kaoru caught it with his thumb, spread it around. It almost was like doing this for himself. He could feel his own cock twitching, growing hard. The layers of fabric between them made it easier to pretend that it wasn't Hikaru's ass pressing against him. He increased his pressure and rhythm, rocking his hips in time with the head emerging from his fist.

Until someone not-him moaned.

Kaoru broke his gaze, looking away, across the room, anywhere but at his hand sliding over Hikaru's cock. He couldn't do anything about the erection pressed between them, but at least Hikaru seemed too distracted to feel it.

Hikaru moaned again and thrust restlessly into Kaoru's hand. "Kaoru, what...?"

"Sorry, Hikaru. Just... lost the rhythm for a moment." Kaoru picked it up again, keeping his gaze fixed on Hikaru's face instead of his cock. Hikaru's breathing came fast and rough through parted lips. His closed lids fluttered, lashes ginger half-moons on his cheeks. Kaoru watched his twin's reactions, looking for the signs that told him tighter, faster, more, more, more. He didn't want to end it quickly... which was exactly why he needed to end it quickly.

Hikaru's slack lips gradually tightened into a grimace, and the nails of his good hand dug into Kaoru's pants. Kaoru grabbed the hand towel and stopped watching. He couldn't. Couldn't watch Hikaru come. It was too intimate, a step too close to the line. He buried his nose in Hikaru's neck, covered his pumping fist with the towel, and hand-fucked his brother to completion.

Kaoru held Hikaru tight through his orgasm. It seemed to go on a long time before the deep-throated whimpers faded into sighs and Hikaru's tension washed away into bonelessness. Kaoru carefully released his grip, recognizing Hikaru's hiss of breath all too well. Coming left Kaoru similarly over-sensitized. He wadded the towel, wiped up a small mess on Hikaru's belly that had evaded capture, and slid out from behind his brother.

Hikaru flopped to his side in the absence of Kaoru's support. He stretched, flexing all the way down to his toes, almost purring. His eyes cracked open and he watched Kaoru, languid as a cat.

"Better?" Kaoru asked, parts affectionate and perturbed. How could Hikaru be so... unaffected?

"Mmmm," Hikaru said, which only increased both feelings for Kaoru.

"Right. I'm going to clean up." Kaoru raised his right hand, slick with lube and sticky with Hikaru's semen.

"Mmmmm."

With a disgusted snort, Kaoru went to the bathroom and shut the door. He rinsed off his hand and immediately slicked it with fresh lube. As hard as he was, there was no point in waiting until morning.

 

***

 

By the time Kaoru finished in the shower and emerged from the bathroom, Hikaru was dressed and sprawled across the bed with his own books, headphones on, studying. The only indication that anything had happened was Hikaru's languid movements and the towel still wadded in the corner of the sink room. Kaoru tossed the towel in the hamper, dressed like he normally would, and joined Hikaru on the bed.

They fell into their habitual patterns: study, dinner (alone except for each other), more studying, until Hikaru got bored and drew Kaoru into more planning for their girl group. By the time they stripped down to boxers for bed, Kaoru's equilibrium had settled. What happened that afternoon had been... fine. Normal. Nothing to upset himself over. Hikaru's casual behavior made it so. Kaoru climbed into bed, pushing and shoving with Hikaru until they settled into their usual limb-tangled position, and there was nothing weird about it.

"Kaoru?" Hikaru said, just as Kaoru was drifting off.

"Mmm?" Kaoru mumbled, not even bothering to lift his face from the pillow it was smashed into.

"Thanks again. For... today."

"Mmno big deal," Kaoru mumbled, relieved that he could speak the truth.


	2. Chapter 2

Casting for their girl groups turned out to be very easy... and also maddeningly impossible.

It was easy because of course Kyouya. The Shadow King kept a robust client database, including school photos and what looked like professional headshots—Kaoru was deeply curious to know how he'd gotten those. In addition to general data on likes, dislikes, allergies, family financial portfolios, and host booking patterns, Kyouya had already compiled survey responses from clients interested in participating, including vocal, dance, and stage training and which team the client wanted to be assigned to in order of preference.

"And with a 100% response rate," Kyouya said with a soft smile that was his version of preening. Apparently, not everyone answered surveys most of the time.

"How do you know they told the truth?" Hikaru asked. He and Kaoru always responded to surveys, but never truthfully. Kaoru paged through the printed dossier of clients who'd requested Green Team. Without exception, they were all girls that Kaoru and Hikaru had already marked as 'theirs'.

"I'd say enlightened self-interest, but humans can be remarkably contrary and irrational about such things." Kyouya said. He was still on his laptop, data-crunching, he said. "So, to correct for that, I seeded the survey with validation questions." He blinked at the twin incredulous looks that Kaoru and Hikaru were giving him. "It's just basic applied sociology and market research methodology."

"That's not why we're surprised," Hikaru said.

"It's because it sounds like you had fun doing it," Kaoru continued.

Kyouya tilted his head. "I did."

If Kyouya was the grease, Tamaki was the grit. He whinged over losing almost every girl assigned to the other teams.

"But... but... I wanted Rika! She's so perfect, my Pear-Blossom Princess. How could she possibly have asked to be paired with these two idiots?" and, "Mizu-umi too?! It must be a mistake! She didn't understand the ranking system!" and "Why, Princess Ami? Just because you love bunnies and cake? _There is more to life than bunnies and cake!_ " This last declared in a whisper because Honey had fallen asleep in Mori's lap, and not even Tamaki was idiot enough to wake the sleeping beast.

Even with Kyouya's database and sorting-fu, the casting process went late into the evening as the boys good-naturedly bickered and argued over girls that more than one team wanted.

Haruhi, who'd kept quiet through most of the discussion other than to suggest that if they were going to go all night, maybe they should order food, settled onto the couch next to Kaoru. They watched Hikaru and Tamaki face off over the much-coveted Rika.

"I have to say, I'm a bit relieved," Haruhi said. "I was worried this might get ugly."

"Huh?" Kaoru said, glancing aside at her. She was sporting that fond half-grin that said they'd surprised her again. "Why?"

"Well. You know. The whole Girl Group thing... it comes with a lot of baggage. Creepy old men perving on teenage girls while requiring they maintain their purity so as not to spoil the fantasy. Popular culture that bases a woman's value around narrow definitions of beauty and desirability, all mediated through heavily sensualized performative acts."

"I thought you didn't want to participate because you didn't know much about girl groups."

Haruhi grinned and winked. "I didn't want to participate because I know too much about girl groups."

"But this is okay?" Kaoru gestured at the bickering. Kyouya had finally stepped in to mediate, which meant it would be over soon.

"Yeah. I mean, there's still issues, but the fact that you guys want every girl who wants to participate, that you aren't rejecting anyone for her looks or lack of talent or experience. That you really do seem to think they're all special—"

"Because they are!" Tamaki said. He seemed to have an inborn sense for any monologue opportunity that let him expound on his favorite topic. "The Ouran Host Club exists to bring every girl joy, to make her feel special. Unique. No!" He covered his face with one hand—but not so much that they couldn't all appreciate his soulful expression—and swept the other hand down in a dramatic rejection of... whatever it was he was rejecting. "We exist to _see_ what is special about every girl and help her to see it herself. _That_ is what makes a Princess shine!"

"Yeah, don't get me started on the Princess thing, senpai," Haruhi said, but she was still smiling fondly at Tamaki's antics.

"I got us Rika _and_ Mizu-umi," Hikaru said, flopping down beside Kaoru, flush with victory and just a bit smug.

Tamaki wilted, even though he must have known. "My poor pear-blossom Princess and her reflecting lake. Don't you two idiots dare bruise their petals!"

"Yeah, whatever you say, tono." Hikaru levered back up, a bit less graceful than his usual thanks to his arm. "Ready to get out of here?"

Hikaru didn't wait for Kaoru's answer, just headed for the door. Kaoru scrambled to follow, grabbing both their book bags. Kyouya was saying something about remainder girls who'd left their requested host ranking blank, but he didn't call for the twins to stop, so it was nothing to do with them.

They plotted all the way home. Kaoru didn't make his usual offer to help when Hikaru disappeared into the bathroom, but he left his headphones off, just in case. No call came, though, and Hikaru emerged in record time, chattering excitedly about some new choreography idea he'd had in the shower. Kaoru tamped down on the tiny and entirely inappropriate surge of disappointment and concentrated on doing his best to make sure Green Team won.

 

***

 

Kaoru and Hikaru met with their group after school the next day. Kyouya had reserved all three music rooms until winter break. "After all, it _is_ a musical activity," he explained.

He'd also reserved one of the classroom annexes. "We had a number of clients with no stated preference, but I noticed a certain pattern in their attendance," Kyouya had said. "So we've recruited Kasanoda-san to assist as the leader of the Gold Team."

"He's not a host," Tamaki had grumbled, making Kaoru wonder what leverage Kyouya had used to convince their King. Tamaki still bore a slight grudge against Kasanoda for asking Haruhi out.

"Yes. I understand one of his associates will be assisting him. A Mr. Tetsuya?"

"Also not a host."

"And yet we must do our utmost to keep our clients happy," Kyouya said, and that had put an end to Tamaki's grumbles.

Green Team commandeered Music Room #1. Kaoru and Hikaru had settled on TechnoTango as their theme, which gave them ample opportunity to perform—er... demonstrate—for their girls exactly what they wanted.

And Renge was only too happy to help with exposition. She'd even wrangled up a cosplay at short notice, some character from Mob of Myths that Kaoru had never heard of, but it fit the theme: "The Argentine tango is a dance of struggle, of love and desire denied because it is forbidden. Developed in the milongas and cantinas of the slums of Buenos Aires, it portrayed the private pain of men transformed for public consumption as they struggled against each other for respect, status, and the love of a woman. But we know what they were really struggling against, don't we ladies?"

A quiet techno beat started up under the girls' excited whispers:  _Moe, moe, moe, moe._

While Renge talked, Kaoru and Hikaru demonstrated the choreography. They'd agreed that Kaoru should take the lead because of Hikaru's injury, but it still felt strange for Kaoru to be leading rather than following. And because it felt strange, it was harder for Kaoru to ignore the elements of the dance that Renge had mentioned. Struggle. Passion denied. Kaoru pulled Hikaru into hold a little too hard, a little too soon, and had to catch Hikaru's elbow before he took a cast to the face.

"Kaoru, be careful. My arm," Hikaru breathed as they met nose-to-nose, Kaoru gripping Hikaru's arm as though Hikaru had tried to strike him.

"Don’t tell me what to do," Kaoru snarled in contradiction to his true feelings. _Tell me. Tell me what I should do!_ He stepped into Hikaru's dance space, sliding his leg between Hikaru's, and Hikaru yielded with a few quick flicks, just as the choreography required.

But the heat, the hint of hardness between Hikaru's legs, the definite hardness between Kaoru's... was that part of the choreography? The plan? The game?

 _Moe, moe, mo_ e continued the beat, pushing them both on. Renge continued to narrate: "When passion is repressed, it must come out in other ways. Anger. Jealousy. Betrayal. What's even better than brotherly love? Brotherly conflict!"

Hikaru turned his face to one side, baring his cheek and neck. "When did you become so mean, Kaoru?"

Kaoru spun him again, arm curling around Hikaru's waist, hand sliding down his hip, groin pressed against his ass. Just like they'd been doing the other day. "When did you become so... so... argh!" Kaoru artfully shoved Hikaru aside. Hikaru spun, collapsed to the floor, clutching Kaoru's leg and looking up imploringly.

The music ended. The room erupted into screams. None of the girls were going to forget that choreography.

Kaoru helped Hikaru to his feet. "I'm sorry, Hikaru. I didn't... hurt you, did I?" It was a reversion back to their usual roles, but Kaoru needed it. Needed that momentary reversion to normalcy.

Hikaru seemed to understand, to need it too. He gathered Kaoru close, nose pressed to his temple. "I'm stronger than I look, Kaoru. Nothing you do will break me."

And even though Hikaru used _I_ and _me_ , Kaoru heard what he really meant: _we_ and _us_. He let himself cling to Hikaru just a moment longer before they both turned to bow to the deafening cheers of their girls.

"We are so going to win this thing," Hikaru murmured, smirking, and Kaoru winked in agreement.

 

***

 

Kaoru was hardly surprised when he heard his name called from the bathroom that evening. He'd left his headphones off again, just in case, but he hadn't expected anything...

No. He'd expected. He just hadn't let himself hope.

Their ensuite was huge. Well, and why wouldn't it be? The Hitachiin family was rich, and its only sons were born hedonists. The sink room boasted a vanity longer than most salons, with adjustable mirrors so they could check their hair from every possible angle. To one side was the door to the toilet room. They usually kept that closed. To the other side was the bathroom with a shower larger than some commoner housing and a soaking tub to rival the public sento.

"Hikaru, did you need me?" Kaoru asked, opening the door to the bathroom. Steam wafted out. Hikaru liked his showers hot. They both did.

"Yeah. Could you... maybe... again?" Hikaru was just a shadow in the steamed-up glass of the shower. He hadn't come out yet, and the sound of rain falling meant he hadn't turned off the water.

Kaoru hesitated. "I guess. You mean, after you're done?"

The shower door opened and Hikaru's head poked out, unevenly covered with soap. "Well, it'd be easier and less messy if we did it in here," he said. "And that way, you can help me wash my hair."

"Now you can't wash your hair?" Kaoru grumbled, even as he started peeling off his clothes. After all, it was too late to start protesting now. They were creating a new normal. That was all.

Hikaru had disappeared back into the shower and closed the door. His voice echoed off the tile and bamboo walls. "I can. But have you ever washed your hair one-handed? It's a real pain. And it never feels rinsed properly."

Hikaru was leaning to one side under the rainfall shower, shaking his head, when Kaoru opened the glass door and stepped inside. He grimaced and straightened. "I think there's still soap in my ear.

Kaoru sighed and plucked the handheld head from the wall mount, flipping the knob that diverted the water flow.  "Sit down," he said, spraying Hikaru with the handheld until he retreated to the bench that ran along the far side of the shower.

Hikaru sat. Kaoru faced him, standing. He tilted his twin's head back and used the handheld to give his hair a proper wetting, running his fingers through it, warm silk and water. Hikaru closed his eyes and rocked his head back and forth under Kaoru's caress.

"Hold this." Kaoru thrust the handheld at Hikaru and popped open the shampoo, lathering it into Hikaru's hair none-too-gently.

"You are getting a bit meaner, aren't you?" Hikaru said, turning the sprayer on Kaoru.

Kaoru hissed as hot water hit his belly. Or maybe it was Hikaru's soft observation. Or possibly both. He softened his scrubbing, using the pads of his fingers instead of his nails to work the shampoo into Hikaru's scalp. "I'm not. Am I? It's just... it's hard being you for so long. I mean, not being you, but... taking charge, talking first. It's so much responsibility."

"I know what you meant." The water sprayed against Kaoru's chest, his hips, his legs, and back up to his belly, stinging warm and as soothing in its own way as a caress. "It's not actually easy to be you for an extended period."

"You mean, occasionally being nice?"

"I mean seeing things I don't usually bother to see."

Kaoru took back the sprayer and rinsed Hikaru's hair. He didn't want to ask, but... "Like what?"

"Like... Haruhi. She loves us all, but she doesn't actually want any of us." He opened his eyes when Kaoru stopped spraying, looking up at him. Looking serious. "Not even Tamaki. Not... in that way."

Kaoru passed the sprayer back and started massaging in conditioner. "She wants to succeed. She wants to be a lawyer. I don't think she wants anyone in that way."

Hikaru chuckled. "So she's as cold as Kyouya?"

Kaoru smirked. He was still better at this than his brother. "Oh, our Shadow King isn't as cold as he wants us all to believe."

"Really?" Hikaru drawled, an implied demand for elucidation, but Kaoru shook his head and took back the handheld to rinse out the conditioner. Too soon, but Hikaru had neglected it during their conversation, and it had been pounding needle-hot water against Kaoru's groin.

"Guess I'll have to figure it out on my own." Hikaru tilted his head back to help with the rinsing. "Is there a prize?"

"Winner names it? You if you guess in a week. Me if you don't?"

"Done."

Kaoru returned the handheld to its mount and swapped the water flow back to the overhead rainfall while Hikaru put the shampoo and conditioner back in the bath basket.

Which just left the third bottle.

"So. Um," Kaoru said, shifting from foot to foot under the fall of water. Last time, bravado had carried him through. This time...

He was so tired of playing seme.

"Right," Hikaru said, scooping up the bottle. He frowned at the narrow bench and the hard glass and tile walls of the shower. "I guess... standing would be easiest? Like today with the tango?"

"Okay. Not... face to face?"

"The angle's wrong. Here." Hikaru turned and backed into Kaoru, fitting against him rather too well. "Arm around my waist, like before."

"Anything else?" Kaoru asked, slightly bemused by how easily they slid into their natural roles, even when their positions were still reversed.

"Maybe don't grab at me like I'm the last Black Thunder in the bag?" Hikaru suggested, laughing.

"Screw you," Kaoru said, but the laughter helped chase away his hesitation.

_No big deal._

Like before, Hikaru was only semi-aroused. Kaoru took a moment to consider what he'd do for himself. Tried not to think about what he'd do differently for Hikaru. He flattened his hand over Hikaru's abdomen, just below their overlapping arms, and traced idle circles down, down, following the abdominal cut to Hikaru's groin. He diverted at the last centimeter, down one thigh, scraping his nails back up. Hikaru groaned and jerked, his cock bobbing up. Kaoru's own cock was doing the same, rising to knock against Hikaru's balls. He winced at his body's betrayal. There was no way Hikaru had missed that.

"Sorry," Kaoru murmured, pulling away. The warm water than had been coursing around them fell between them. "It's just—"

"Natural. I mean, if you're pretending you're jacking yourself off, makes sense you're going to get hard. No different than the other day, and you took care of yourself just fine afterwards, right?"

Kaoru's nails dug into Hikaru's thigh, drawing a hiss from his brother. "You knew?

"Duh, Mr. Observant. I'd have been more worried if you hadn't."

_No big deal._

"Okay then. As long as it doesn't bother you." Kaoru pulled Hikaru close again, like he had in their tango, and shoved his hand between Hikaru's legs. He cradled Hikaru's balls, firmer, more confident than he'd been the last time.

"Better?" Kaoru whispered into Hikaru's ear.

Hikaru squirmed in his arms. "Yessss..."


	3. Chapter 3

And that set the pattern of Kaoru's days for the next two weeks. School, Host Club gatherings and rehearsals with Green Team on the club's off-days. Home to shower, wash Hikaru's hair, and jack him off. Hikaru would always leave Kaoru alone to finish himself, which... was better. It was better that way. It made a clean line they could both be sure they weren't crossing.

They spent their days off perusing their mother's design house and showroom, consulting with her top assistants, dismissing option after option as too... whatever objection came to mind. They'd wheedled Haruhi into giving up her Sunday to model potential base designs for them, so most of their rejections were just a game to see how long she'd put up with their nonsense. They made sure to take photos of each outfit for later review, and also in case they needed to buy themselves back into someone's good graces—Tamaki's, Kyouya's, Haruhi's if she ever caught them. When Haruhi exploded in frustration at their indecision, they decided they liked the first style she'd tried on the best.

Then they took her out for the fanciest tuna in town as an apology, so she grudgingly forgave them after only a few grumbles about Rich People.

Tamaki and Kyouya spent the entire two weeks bickering—or rather, Tamaki's swings between enthusiasm and despair grew more pronounced, and Kyouya grew colder in private and more frighteningly congenial in public until practically every other sentence he spoke to Tamaki was delivered with a friendly smile and punctuated by a muttered, "you idiot."

Given that, it took Hikaru all of three days to guess what Kaoru had meant during their shower discussion, but he refused to name or claim his forfeit.

Per usual, Honey and Mori were the calm, stable center of the Host Club. All of Kaoru and Hikaru's combined spying efforts couldn't uncover what their plans were beyond 'cake' and 'bunnies.' Haruhi was lending them some sort of assistance, but even pestering her yielded no results. Whatever they were working on, it occupied them so thoroughly that Honey's consumption of sweets dropped significantly enough to make Kyouya smile for real.

Kyouya wasn't smiling when he stopped the twins on their way out for the day. "The cast comes off this weekend, yes?"

The question had to be a formality. Kaoru suspected that the only people who knew better than Kyouya exactly when the cast was supposed to come off were Hikaru and himself.

"Yeah." Hikaru rolled his shoulder. He'd dispensed with the sling after the first week, declaring it more trouble than it was worth. Now he just complained about the weight of the cast putting a strain on his back. "It'll be nice to get things back to normal."

Kaoru ignored the queasy rolling of his stomach. "Yeah. You can go back to carrying your own books, for one thing."

Kyouya adjusted his glasses, studying his appointment book. "I suppose that's for the best. The novelty of the switch-up does seem to have faded more quickly than I would have expected. I will be interested to read the final doctor's report on the effectiveness of your osteoid cast. You know the Ootori Group developed that technology." He started to walk away. Paused. "Tamaki has decided we need a cosplay day to celebrate. Shakespeare. Get your requests to me tonight and try to come early on Monday." He wandered off, muttering something about returns on investment.

"Kaoru?"

"Yes, Hikaru?"

"You don't really mind carrying my bag and... everything else, do you?"

Kaoru's brow furrowed at the... hurt... in his brother's soft tone. All the clients had gone home. There wasn't anyone around to perform for. The vulnerability behind Hikaru's question was sincere.

"Of course I don't, Hikaru." Kaoru hitched the bags over his shoulders, carrying both their burdens in more ways than one. He smiled brightly. "Why would I?"

 

***

 

Kaoru was replacing the handheld showerhead after washing Hikaru's hair when Hikaru sighed. He'd been subdued since they left school. He perched on the bench, frowning down at the cast balanced across his knee.

"What's wrong?" Kaoru asked, half-dreading the answer. "Do you... are you not in the... do you not want my help?" _No! Our last day of pretend. You do not get to take this from me._ He bit his lip to keep from shouting it. This was supposed to be no big deal.

"No. It's just... Ugh. I'm so tired. And my shoulder hurts, and standing just feels like so much work."

Kaoru laughed, part amusement, mostly relief. "Oh no. You have to do some work? Okay, you lazy bum." He leaned out of the shower to grab one of the thick, fluffy towels, folded it in half, and plopped it down in front of the bench. "Kneel."

"Kaoru?" Hikaru looked from the towel to Kaoru and back.

"Go on. Face the bench. You can rest your arm on it, too. I just don't want to bruise up my knees because you're too lazy to stand for it."

Hikaru made a face, but he complied, kneeling on the towel.

"Spread your legs." Kaoru nudged them apart with his foot, then knelt between them, fitting himself close against Hikaru's back. His cock was already up enough that it got trapped between them, and... yeah. That was good. That worked... very nicely. No adjustment needed.

_No big deal._

"How's this?" he asked. They were too close to the bench for Kaoru to wrap his arm around Hikaru's waist. Instead, he braced it across the bench alongside Hikaru's good arm. He wasn't sure if it was wise for Hikaru to catch his hand and intertwine their fingers like that, but he couldn't bring himself to protest.

"Yeah. This is... this is good."

"Okay then." Kaoru fumbled one-handed with the lube, gave up, and squirted it directly onto Hikaru's crotch.

"Ah! 'Sss cold!" Hikaru yelped, pulling away as though he could escape the sensation, which lined the groove of his ass right up with Kaoru's cock.

Kaoru shivered and held himself very still for several breaths before remembering that Hikaru'd had some sort of complaint. Cold. Right. He rubbed warmth into the lube, spreading it across Hikaru's thighs, cock, balls, everywhere. He'd used... rather more than he intended. "Shut-up, you big baby," he said, stroking, squeezing, slick-handed fondles of Hikaru's tightening sac. Kaoru had learned the ins-and-outs of Hikaru's cock over the past two weeks. He knew how to tease and coax, how to bring things to a quick conclusion. He pushed down Hikaru's foreskin and caught the precum already beading at the tip, spreading it in swift, sure strokes.

"Don't..." Hikaru's breath caught. "Go slow."

"Don't go slow?" Kaoru whispered. Maybe the past few weeks had taught him something else. Maybe he was learning to be just a little bit mean.

 _And selfish_ , he thought, grinding into Hikaru's ass.

Hikaru's fingers tightened around his. "No. Idiot. Go slow. Draw it out this time. Make it last."

Kaoru wasn't sure he was going to last long enough to make it last for Hikaru. But he could try. "Okay." He slowed his strokes, letting himself stray beyond the bounds of what he usually did for himself. Letting himself imagine what he might do for Hikaru. What he wanted to do for Hikaru.

"Time to left-hand it." Kaoru lifted their clasped hands and guided Hikaru's down. Hikaru transferred his hold so they were both jacking him off, fingers bumping, sliding, like when they play wrestled, and Hikaru's cock hard and pumping between their palms.

Kaoru slid his free hand further down, cupping Hikaru's balls. "Lean forward."

Hikaru pressed his cheek to the bench, ass raising. Kaoru followed, rocking into the rise and fall of Hikaru's ass, using his leverage to press Hikaru more firmly back against him.

And it was good. Except...

"What is it?" Hikaru asked when Kaoru made a noise that was more pain than pleasure.

"Chafing."

"Then use the lube, you idiot."

It was a bad idea, but Kaoru couldn't quite remember why, and Hikaru had told him to do it, so it couldn't be _that_ bad an idea. At the very least, they'd be getting into trouble together. He leaned away long enough to squeeze a copious amount of lube between them and pressed right back against Hikaru, rolling his hips to spread the lube. His cock fit so well, glided so smoothly along Hikaru's ass that it was almost like being inside... someone.

Kaoru squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to put a name to that imagined someone. He thrust faster, chasing the pressure building in the depths of his groin.

"Kao-ru." Hikaru's voice broke on Kaoru's name. Their fingers were clasped tight around Hikaru's cock, and Kaoru couldn't say which one of them was setting the pace or pressure. They were both chasing the growing tension. Kaoru released Hikaru's balls to brace his hand against the bench. All of Hikaru's weight was pressed down on him, rising and falling with each stroke, and Kaoru wanted to watch Hikaru's face, but he couldn't. He knew he shouldn't. He rested his brow against the back of Hikaru's head and raised his hips in time with the movement of their hands. He was close, so close, and yet he couldn't go without Hikaru.

"Kaoru," Hikaru cried again, a plea instead of a warning, and Kaoru knew he shouldn't respond. Names complicated the pretense, but he was desperate to do something to answer that plea.

"Hika-ru," he grunted, and bit into the back of Hikaru's neck.

Hikaru cried out, full throated and unconstrained, nothing like his usual soft grunts. His cock pulsed, which was all the permission that Kaoru needed to give in to his own release. He gentled his bite, sucking the back of Hikaru's neck in time with his orgasm. No shouting, just deep-throated whimpers and clenched eyes and nails dragging across the wood bench and oh fucking _kamisama_ it had never felt this good.

Or this overwhelming, he thought as the first wave of orgasm passed and the aftereffects settled in. He fell back from Hikaru's sagging, boneless cat's body and landed on his ass in the warm rain of the showerhead. Even the touch of water was too much, like butterflies under his skin. He slid away until he was out of the stream and lay flat on the water-warmed tile. He shivered with each stray droplet that hit him, waiting for the hypersensitivity to pass.

"Kaoru?"

The movement of air as Hikaru approached was another moment of torture. Kaoru twisted away before those reaching fingers could brush his skin. "Don't touch me!" he snapped. Knowing he should explain why, but he just... needed... a moment.

He hugged himself, willing the shivers to die away. He barely heard Hikaru's "Okay. Whatever." Or noticed when his twin turned off the shower, stepped over him, and left the bathroom.

 

***

 

"It's not what you think."

Hikaru had his headphones on, head bowed over his notes. Kaoru had hid out in the bathroom long enough that Hikaru's hair was almost dry.

Long enough for Hikaru to pull indifference around himself like armor. Kaoru had seen him do it often enough to recognize it. Only he'd never been on the outside of that armor.

And he wasn't going to let it start now. If the pumpkin was broken, fine. Then it was time to clean up the pieces. "Hey." He pulled off Hikaru's headphones and tossed them aside.

"I was listening to something," Hikaru said.

"And now you're listening to me. It's not what you think."

Hikaru crossed his arms. Or tried. The cast's immobilization made twisting his arm impossible. He settled for twisting away and giving Kaoru his shoulder. "And what do I think?"

"That I... that we..." Okay, maybe Kaoru wasn't as ready to talk about what was going on between them as he thought. He sighed and sat down on the bed, facing Hikaru, even though Hikaru was turned away. "Look, when I come, I get sensitive. Like, really sensitive. All over. I can't stand to have anything touch me. It's like... pins and needles in my entire body. And just now... well... it was even more intense than usual."

Hikaru looked over his shoulder, fox-wary now instead of feline-indifferent. Kaoru tried to look as sincere as he could. He needed Hikaru to believe. Whatever else changed between them, Hikaru had to know this wasn't a rejection of him. Of them.

"That's weird," Hikaru said.

 _We're twins, and we just fucked each other's brains out, and_   this _is weird?_ Kaoru wrinkled his nose at Hikaru. "Yeah, well. How do you know? Maybe you're the weird one."

Hikaru watched him for a few moments longer, then grinned and leaned back against the headboard, one arm pillowing his head. "Nope. I've seen my share of porn. Pretty sure you're the weird one. How about now? You still Mr. Sensitive?" He lifted a bare foot and gently nudged Kaoru's arm, his thigh, his belly.

"Hey, no stop that. I'm fine." Kaoru batted and shoved at Hikaru's nudging. "Get your stinky feet out of my face." Knowing Hikaru would inevitably bring his other foot to bear, Kaoru lunged, taking the offensive in the wrestling match.

It wasn't a fair fight because of Hikaru's cast, and it wasn't a comfortable fight because of the books and notes strewn across the bed. But it was a typical fight, with none of the charged sexual tension Kaoru had expected after what happened in the shower. It was no different than a thousand wrestling matches they'd had before.

 _I guess we're back to playing pretend_ , Kaoru thought as Hikaru straddled his back and used a book to smoosh his head into the bedding. And with the cast coming off the next day... maybe that was for the best.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hello Ladies. It's time to play the 'Which one is Guildenstern?' game!" Hikaru and Kaoru announced in unison, sweeping their half-cloaks aside, pulling their Elizabethan flat caps low, and giving a deep reverence to the couches crowded with giggling girls eager to see the Hitachiin Twins back to their usual antics.

Hikaru and Kaoru wore matching doublets of deep green velvet trimmed with black leather and silver buttons. The small ruff hid the mark on the back of Hikaru's neck even better than cover-up and shirt collars, so there was nothing to worry about there. And after an exceedingly long debate—five whole seconds—they'd agreed the over-the-knee leather boots and trunk hose were more dashing than white silk stockings and slops. From the reactions of their guests, they'd chosen wisely.

"Oh, I just don't know," one girl declared, hands pressed to her cheeks to cool their heat. "It's hard enough guessing which one is Hikaru!"

"I could never remember the difference between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They're interchangeable," said another girl, patting her friend's knee.

"But that's what makes it the perfect costume!" the girls squealed in tandem.

"Hm. Yes," Kyouya said as he paused behind the high-fiving twins. The club's Shadow King was dressed as Iago, his costume similar to the twins' in cut, but made of leather with indigo-dyed satin puffs in the slashes. "To be honest, I was rather surprised at your choice. I would have thought you'd both go as Puck."

"We hate being predictable," Hikaru said.

"And besides, Mori-senpai makes a much better Puck," Kaoru said, gesturing at the next table over.

"I am that merry wanderer of the night," Mori said in a deep monotone.

"Heeee!" said Honey-Oberon, Loli-boy King of the Fairies, spinning around on his seat so that the girls crowded around the two hosts had to duck to avoid Honey's fairy wings.

"Yes. I suppose it is a unique interpretation, at least." Kyouya surveyed the room, making marks in his appointment book. On the far side of the room, a hush and a dark cloud of gloom presaged some sort of pending dramatic explosion. "Excuse me. I need to make sure our illustrious Romeo isn't planning on accidentally stabbing or poisoning anyone. Like himself."

Kaoru and Hikaru exchanged a knowing look as Kyouya slipped away to handle Tamaki.

At the table on the other side of the twins' area, Haruhi, in a doublet and kilted-up skirts, was explaining her costume to her guests with the flat tones of the deeply unamused: "Rosalind. As Ganymede. Pretending to be Rosalind. I didn't pick it. I think Kyouya-senpai did."

The girls held up their fingers, trying to keep track. "So Haruhi, that means... you're a boy dressed as a girl dressed as a boy who's... pretending to be a girl."

"Yeah." Haruhi sipped her tea, lips and eyes flat with chagrin. "I think this is his revenge for the salary negotiations."

Kaoru exchanged a glance with Hikaru, and by silent mutual agreement they decided that there were some sleeping bears you did not poke unless you wanted to exeunt being pursued by one.

Luckily, their attention was drawn back to their clients before boredom could get the better of their good sense.

"I think I've got it!" one of the girls shouted, standing, finger raised in triumph. "Rosencrantz always comes first, and Hikaru always comes first, so that must mean that Hikaru is Rosencrantz and Kaoru is Guild—oh. But... the usual game is 'Which one is Hikaru?', which indicates that Guildenstern is replacing Hikaru, so..." She wailed and sat down again. "I'm so confused!"

"I am too, but not because of that," one of the other girls said. "Don't Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die in the end?"

Hikaru and Kaoru had been waiting for this opening from the moment they sent their costume choice to Kyouya. Kaoru shot Hikaru a desperate look. "We didn't think of that. Oh, Hikaru, what will I do without you?" he cried, stumbling toward his brother.

Hikaru caught him, cradling Kaoru close to his chest and stroking his hair. "Don't worry, Kaoru. I'd never leave you alone. If we die, we die together."

Kaoru's sigh rose above the sighs of their audience. He rubbed his cheek against the velvet of Hikaru's chest. It was so nice to be uke again. All was right with the world. He closed his eyes. "Then I guess there's nothing to fear, as long as you're with me."

"Oh, Kaoru. You're so..." Hikaru's breath brushed Kaoru's ear. "Sensitive."

Kaoru's eyes snapped open. He froze, forgetting for a moment where they were, what they were doing. Hikaru hadn't just...

_You're so sensitive._

Yes. He had. Kaoru lifted his chin and gave his brother a soulful look, slipping his fingers under Hikaru's ruff to brush the back of his neck. "Oh, Hickey-chan," he whispered, fighting an evil smile when Hikaru tensed at the oddly-stressed syllables. "They're right about one thing. You always come first... with me."

They continued gazing soulfully into each other's eyes through the subsequent squeals and flashes of cameras, their velvet half-cloaks hiding how their fingers dug into each other's arms to keep from cracking up.

 

***

 

Despite Hikaru's too-intimate teasing at the club, life did go back to normal once his cast was removed. They were too busy for anything else to be the case. With only two weeks to go to the Battle of the Girl Groups, the days they didn't spend at the Host Club were spent rehearsing late into the evening.

All moe aside, they'd picked—or been picked by?—a great group of girls. Those who weren't naturally talented worked harder to make up the gap, and they'd all grown closer through the weeks of planning and rehearsal. The girls had taken to wearing green—hats, jewelry, ribbons, armbands—whatever could be added to embellish their uniforms. They ate lunch together in empty classrooms, practiced choreography with their hands as they walked along hallways, helped each other with the hardest steps and vocal parts. Hikaru and Kaoru became 'Our Boys' and got friendly waves and winks and smiles and nods whenever they passed one or more of 'Their Girls' in the halls. It was almost like having twenty Haruhis. Not really clients any longer. Hard work and long hours had turned Green Team into friends.

Still, it was nice that Hikaru mandated a no-work Sunday before tech week. Kaoru had no doubt that they'd be pushing rehearsals to the last minute. There'd be costumes to finalize, lighting and sound issues to fix, and who knew how the choreography would work once they hit the stage? There were a thousand little details to take care of and not enough time to address them all. It almost made him wish Kyouya was on their team.

Almost. Except Tamaki really would be lost without his Shadow King.

So that Sunday, Kaoru lay in bed longer than he usually did after waking. A cold snap in the night meant the house was just a bit chilly, and Hikaru was warm, and Kaoru didn't really have anything he needed to get up for thanks to Hikaru's mandate.

The tug of an erection reminded him that wasn't quite the case. It wasn't the first erection that Kaoru had woken up with in the week since Hikaru's cast came off, but it was the first one he'd had the time or inclination to do anything about.

He opened his eyes. Hikaru's face was buried in his pillow to escape the morning light, hair mashed all to one side. It made Kaoru smile, made his chest tighten. Made him long to lean over and...

_No._

He untangled his arms and legs from Hikaru's and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Things had returned to normal, and that was good. It would be stupidly self-destructive to threaten that.

He sighed, crawled out of bed, and headed for the toilet and the bathroom.

His morning piss did much to banish his erection, but the long, hot shower that followed summoned it right back. He toyed half-heartedly with his cock, but he couldn't quite bring up the enthusiasm to commit. And yet it was stupid to leave the shower half-hard. Morning was his usual jack-off time. What was he going to do, spend the rest of his life hoping Hikaru sprained his wrist again?

This was stupid. He needed to get over himself and just take care of it. He sprawled on the bench, stroking, cupping his balls, making himself harder and more frustrated, unable to push beyond that point.

Disgusted, he stretched his arm and plunged one of his lube-slicked fingers into his ass. That always got him off when all else failed. He twisted and stretched, bending his finger, trying to find the right angle. All he managed to do was strain his shoulder from reaching too hard. He withdrew and scrubbed his hands clean.

Fuck.

"Hikaru?" he called almost without thinking. Definitely before consideration of the consequences caught up with his mouth. He stood under the rainfall, appalled with himself, with the stupidity of what he'd just done. There would be no way to play pretend around this, no way to come back from the crossed line. But maybe it would be okay. Hikaru slept like the dead. There was no way he would have heard Kaoru's call.

Kaoru watched the door, listened for an approach, equal parts anticipation and dread.

When nothing happened after several minutes, Kaoru sank on the bench in relief. Sort of relief. He'd certainly never be that daring—or stupid—again. He rested his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, grateful that running water and closed doors and deep sleep had saved him from himself.

Until the shower door opened. "Kaoru? Did you call me?"

Kaoru's head shot up. Hikaru stepped into the shower, eyes half-lidded, still sleep muzzy and rumpled. The sheets had left creases along his torso and cheek. His hair swept all to one side, leaving a funny little bald circle on the other. He yawned, stretched, toes curling against the tile. One arm, the one that had been in the cast, was thinner, paler than the other, but the rest of Hikaru was lean, muscled, and so, so dear.

Kaoru's cock twitched as the affection he'd been holding at bay all morning gushed through him. Hikaru had heard him. He'd come. 'Y-yeah."

Hikaru stepped into the rainfall. Rolled his head under it, letting the hot water wake him up. "You need something?"

Was Hikaru serious? "I... can't masturbate."

Hikaru frowned, taking in the bottle of lube, Kaoru's hard cock, his two good arms. "You sprain something on the way to the bathroom?"

 "No. I... I can masturbate. I've been trying for half the morning. I even used my secret weapon. Just..." Kaoru looked down at his toes. "Nothing's working."

"Hey. It happens." Hikaru sat beside him, knocked his knees into Kaoru's. "Secret weapon?"

"Finger in my ass."

"Oh. Can't say I've ever tried that."

"It usually works for me." Kaoru rolled his shoulder. Winced. "I think I pulled something trying, though."

The shower rang with Hikaru's laughter. "So you did hurt yourself on the way to the bathroom. Or in it. So, what? You want me to stick my finger in your ass?"

Kaoru choked on whatever he'd been about to say. He lifted his head, mouth open stupidly on a complete lack of words.

Hikaru touched his chin. Laugher still danced across his features. "Because I can if you want. Hey, I figure it's the least I owe you after the past month, right?"

"Y-yeah. Right. Okay."

Was this really happening? And how did Hikaru expect they were going to pretend their way past this once they'd crossed the line?

But Hikaru didn't bother to explain that part. He pushed Kaoru down along the length of the bench. "Here, lift your leg. Yeah, like that," he said, pulling Kaoru's leg up over his shoulder and pushing the other one wide so that it hung off the bench. Kaoru twisted his fingers together over his belly, not really sure what to do with them. With any of this. It was a good thing he was lying down, because his equilibrium had taken a holiday.

"You going to do anything with your cock, or are my fingers going to be enough?" Hikaru asked, laughter lurking behind every word.

That laughter helped restore at least some of Kaoru's sense. "Shut up. Lube. And make sure you use some, too."

"Just because I've never done this doesn't mean I'm a complete idiot." Hikaru poured lube into Kaoru's hands and then his own.

Kaoru closed his eyes and slid his hands over his cock, sucking in a breath because they were colder than the rest of his skin. "Your hands aren't cold, are they?"

Something warm and slick touched the insides of Kaoru's thighs, pressing them further apart. "Warm enough?"

"Yeah." Kaoru shifted his hips, already more interested in what was to come than anything his hands were doing to his cock. The touch on his thigh slid higher, pressed into the skin just under his balls. Kaoru jumped and lost hold of his cock, his eyes flying open.

Hikaru was looking down at him intently, not at Kaoru's face, but at his spread legs, his bouncing cock, at Hikaru's own fingers sliding down to toy at Kaoru's anus.

Kaoru must have held tense for too long. Hikaru looked up and met his gaze. "Relax. Just one finger, right?"

 _Don't be greedy, Kaoru._ "To start."

_Or. Okay. Guess it's your one chance. Go ahead and be greedy._

Hikaru's mouth curved into a half-smile. "Or... we can see how many you can take before you come."

Kaoru shivered. His eyes fluttered closed because he half worried Hikaru's grin alone could do him. "P-prize?" He couldn't believe Hikaru was making a game out of _this_ , but he couldn't very well refuse to play his part in their dynamic.

"Hmm. I think... for each finger you take, you get to decide a place to go today, and for each finger left, I do."

"Done."

"Then hold on to your cock. Here's one."

Kaoru had forgotten he'd let go, so when the finger Hikaru had been circling around his anus slid inside, there was no other sensation to distract. Just the slow glide, the slight stretch, the surge of pleasure that had nothing to do with the physical and everything to do with his awareness that it was Hikaru's finger inside him, sliding in and out so carefully that it make Kaoru squirm with frustration. "One finger isn't going to rip me apart. You don't have to be that cautious."

"Who's criticizing whose technique now?" Hikaru asked. "Fine. Here's two."

The next slide stretched him enough that Kaoru felt it all up his spine, a fullness that made him want more. His fingers flexed, toes curled against tile and air. He rocked his hips into Hikaru's hand, needed to feel him deeper. "If you curl them up a bit—"

"Do you want to do this yourself? Also, you're cheating." Something tapped Kaoru's freely-bobbing cock. He opened his eyes and looked down. One of Hikaru's hands was buried between his legs. The one that had been in the cast was tapping a deeply distracting rhythm on Kaoru's cock.

Oh. Right. "Not cheating. Forgot." Kaoru took hold with one hand. Hikaru's joined him, fingers twining like they had the last time, when it had been Hikaru's cock.

Kaoru stared up at his brother. "Hikaru?"

"So you don't 'forget' again. Cheater." Hikaru's hand led Kaoru's into a rhythm of long, slow strokes—

—and then Hikaru curled the fingers jammed into Kaoru's ass.

Kaoru's head knocked back against the bench. The leg slung over Hikaru's shoulder contracted as he tried to drive himself onto that surge of feeling—or escape it. Both. Neither. He didn't know, didn't care about anything but driving himself down onto Hikaru's hand.

"Ready for a third?" Hikaru purred, his breath stirring the hair on Kaoru's thigh.

"Hnghh..."

"Was that even Japanese?"

"Guh... fungh... shlef."

"Language!" Hikaru clicked his tongue. "You kiss our mother with that mouth?"

If Kaoru had any brain cells to rub together, he might have regretted all his lost chances to take pre-emptive vengeance for Hikaru's current torture. As it was, he just wanted... wanted... "Do it."

"Do what?"

"Hikaru!" Kaoru wailed. He pressed his fist to his mouth, biting hard to distract himself. With Hikaru driving the rhythm of their hands around his cock, there was no edging to be done. But Kaoru didn't want to come. Not yet. It wasn't even about winning the challenge. He wanted to be as full of Hikaru as possible.

_Go slow. Make it last._

If Kaoru ever got the chance again, he would. Or he'd try. "Please," he begged around his fist.

"Oh-kaaaay."

Three was too much and just right. Hikaru barely got a few strokes in, fingers gliding against Kaoru's prostate, before Kaoru broke. His hips lifted off the bench, eyes clenched so tight that white pulsed across the darkness behind his lids with every surge of sensation. He rode the orgasm as long as he could, heel digging into Hikaru's shoulder to keep him stroking through it. Kaoru's fingers clamped tight around Hikaru's fingers clamped tight around Kaoru's cock.

And then, just as the tingles were starting, before Kaoru could kick out in reflex, Hikaru withdrew both hands and rose from the bench. Kaoru lay sprawled across it, one knee propped up, holding himself so very, very still. Dimly, he heard the water shift, heard the shower door open and close.

"Hikaru?" He let his head roll to one side.

"I'm here, Kaoru." Hikaru stood on the other side of the shower, one towel draped over his shoulder, wiping his hands dry on another one. "Let me know when it's okay to touch you."

Kaoru let his eyes slide shut. The worst had passed, and he just wanted Hikaru close again. "I'm okay now."

"Good. Cause you're kind of a mess." The change in water sounds was the only warning Kaoru got before the sharp stream from the handheld sprayer hit him across the belly. Kaoru yelped and rolled off the bench, holding his arms up in defense. Hikaru... was such an ass.


	5. Chapter 5

The playful shower battle set the mood going into the rest of their day. Hikaru acted almost like the events that preceded it hadn't taken place, except—

"Where to first?" he asked, grinning and holding up three fingers.

Kaoru's face warmed. If this were the club, their act, he would turn away and whisper Hikaru's name in a pleading tone, but it wasn't an act anymore. Was it?

Even with that question unclear, Kaoru didn't want to be apart from Hikaru, especially not today of all days, but he also needed space and time to think. "Well... I know you said you don't want to do anything related to the Battle of the Girl Groups today, but I was thinking... It's been ages since we hung out with the others. No club stuff. Just goofing around."

Hikaru placed his fingers on his chin, looking up as he considered this. "You know, you're right. So then, who do we pick up first?"

It wasn't even a question. "Haruhi!" they said in stereo.

 

***

 

"You guys seriously need to learn to call first," Haruhi said, greeting them at the door. She was dressed in layers against the cold: leggings, flowered dress, long jumper, loose cardigan over that. And giant pink rubber gloves.

"But then you might have said you were busy, Hikaru said, peering past her shoulder.

"And told us not to come," Kaoru added.

"Yeah. That's kind of the point."

"But then we wouldn't have seen you looking so cute. Almost kind of mori fashion. If you squint. Right Kaoru?"

"I guess. Not sure about the gloves."

"I'm doing dishes!" Haruhi cast her eyes to the heavens and pulled off the gloves. "What do you guys want?"

"Come out with us. You're stop number one on Kaoru's list of three, so if you say no, you made him waste it. And you don't know what he had to do to get it."

Kaoru was glad he could blame his red cheeks on the cold. He dug his hands into his coat pockets and stamped his feet. "And it's cold out here. So get your coat and stuff. We're gathering the group."

"To do what?" Haruhi grumbled, even as she pulled on a red wool coat; adorably mismatched hat, gloves, and scarf; and scuffed boots.

Hikaru and Kaoru linked arms with her and led her down to their car. "That hasn't been decided yet."

 

***

 

"Can we get ice cream?" Honey asked when they reached their second stop. Predictably, Mori was with Honey, so Kaoru didn't need to worry about using up his last stop to get him.

"I think it's a little cold for ice cream, senpai," Haruhi said.

Honey pouted for all of two seconds before Mori said, "We can get hot cocoa, Mitsukuni."

That perked Honey right up. "With marshmallows?"

Mori nodded and grunted. Honey cheered.

Hikaru held up his hand for Kaoru to see, two fingers folded down and a smirk as evil as anything lifting the corner of his mouth. "So, the King or the Shadow King. Which one do you like better?"

"Tamaki-senpai is going to be at the Ootori estate," Haruhi said before Kaoru could respond to Hikaru's taunting. "Kyouya-senpai said something about there being no rest for the wicked or the idiotic."

"Haruhi!" Hikaru wailed, looking betrayed.

Haruhi shrugged. "What? If I'm going to waste my day off, I'd rather spend it doing something more interesting than getting dragged into whatever weird game you two are playing."

 

***

 

"So, my fellow hosts. What should we do on this glorious winter afternoon?" Tamaki asked after they arrived. Haruhi had been right about him being at Kyouya's house, and both Kings had welcomed the reprieve from work—Tamaki with somewhat desperate delight, and Kyouya with eye-twitching relief.

"Hot cocoa!" Honey cried.

"It is getting kind of late," Haruhi said. "And I am getting kind of hungry. Maybe we could just get dinner?"

"We have to come up with something more interesting than that!" Tamaki protested.

"For once, I agree with Tamaki-dono," Hikaru mumbled to Kaoru. "Dinner would be a waste of my finger."

"Well..." Haruhi tugged on the ends of her scarf. "Maybe you guys will think this is dumb, but I've always wanted to see the winter illuminations at Shiodome."

Tamaki froze in place. Hikaru and Kaoru's jaws dropped in tandem.

"You... you've never seen the Shiodome illuminations?" Any one of them could have easily asked the question, though in this case it was Tamaki who got it out first.

"Um. No?"

" _You're so CUTE!_ " All three boys cried and descended on her, tangling themselves up trying to hug the cuteness out of her.

"Don't patronize me, guys," Haruhi grumbled.

Tamaki pulled away to start issuing commands. "Kyouya! Call to arrange a private showing. Honey, Mori, can you provide a security detail—"

"There's no need to make any special arrangements, senpai. It's open to the public. Anyone can go. I've just never made the time for it, what with dad always working and my studies and all."

"You mean, go with all the commoners? During flu season?" Tamaki turned his head slowly. A cloud passing over the sun made him look pale, like someone out of a horror film. "What if we all get sick?"

Hikaru nodded, albeit with much less drama. "There's no reason we can't arrange a private tour, so why wouldn't we?"

Kaoru watched Haruhi's frown deepen into an expression of disgust. "Because of all the other people who made the time for it," he said softly, guessing at the source.

Haruhi nodded. "So many people have already made plans to go see it with their friends or families or loved ones. If you guys mean to take that chance away from them, then I'd rather not go at all."

They all feel silent for a moment, then Tamaki posed, one hand over his chest, like he did when he was making a pronouncement. "Then it is decided. Men, we are going to see the Shiodome illuminations... as commoners!"

Hikaru and Kaoru stood at attention and saluted. Honey cheered. Mori grunted. Haruhi buried her face in her mittened hands and muttered something about Rich People.

Kyouya pulled out his cell phone. "I'll arrange for surgical masks."

 

***

 

The Shiodome Center was cold, crowded with commoners... and just as amazing as any of them might have wished. Blue LED lights twinkled everywhere. They cascaded in falls of jagged icicles from bright stars above, twinkled in bare tree branches, formed arches above the blue-lit paths and rolling fields of starlit splendor. Kaoru and the others walked through a tunnel of light that opened onto a garden of crystalline wonder dazzling enough that even Tamaki fell silent in awe.

The tear sparkling on his cheek was a bit much, though.

Something bumped Kaoru's shoulder. Hikaru, leaning close, slipping his arm around Kaoru's waist. Kaoru did the same. The crowds faded away, and it was only the two of them awash in darkness and blue starlight. All of Kaoru's confusion of earlier returned.

"It's pretty amazing, huh?" Hikaru asked, giving Kaoru a sidelong glance. Blue light danced in his amber eyes. His smile was timid. Intimate. No smirks or mockery to be seen. Just a moment of true brotherly affection. His parted lips looked so soft, almost like an invitation.

"Y-yeah."  Kaoru swayed closer.

"Hot cocoa!" Honey's cry shattered the intimacy of the moment. He dashed across the way to the vendor he'd spotted. Mori followed, and the others.

Hikaru released his hold on Kaoru's waist. The humor had returned to his grin. "Guess that means we're getting hot cocoa."

Within minutes of getting their cocoa, Hikaru had stolen Kaoru's. So Kaoru stole Hikaru's, and then they both contrived to steal Haruhi's.

"What's the matter with you guys?" Haruhi asked, holding two abandoned cocoas—neither one hers—in bafflement. "It's the same hot cocoa."

"Stolen food always tastes better!" they told her, passing her hot cocoa back and forth between them.

Haruhi shook her head fondly. "Fine. More for me," she said, though a few minutes later, Kaoru spied her passing the second cocoa off to an ecstatic Honey.

Eventually, the press of the crowds and the distracting lure of different displays separated their small group into even smaller groups. While Hikaru dragged Haruhi off to see one of the 3D displays—crowded because it was new this year—Kaoru meandered. Any time he came upon a crowd, he diverted to a path less traveled, until he found himself somewhere on the edge of the illumination field, nearly alone aside from a few strolling couples. The display he walked through was low to the ground: fat, squat globes that glowed a pale blue and long trailers of LED lights that spiraled into whimsical curlicues. Kaoru drew in a breath as he realized he stood amid a pumpkin patch picked out in light.

"I've heard they're retiring this part," a woman remarked to her boyfriend as they wandered past, arm in arm.

"Probably for the best," he said. "It really doesn't fit anymore."

Kaoru hugged his arms around himself, fighting off the sudden urge to cry.

"Kaoru?"

He turned to see his brother a few meters away. Alone. "H-hey." He sniffed, rubbed the tip of his nose. "Where's Haruhi?"

"Tamaki-dono stole her away. Hey, you okay?" Hikaru dug in his pocket as he approached and pulled out a tissue. He used it to blot at Kaoru's cheeks and nose.

"Yeah. It's just cold out here. And I've kind of had my fill of people."

"Me too. You know, I still have one destination choice left." He held up a finger. The light from the pumpkin patch danced mischief in his eyes. "Let's go home."

Kaoru met his brother's smile. Maybe he'd been scared for no reason. "Yeah. Let's go home."

 

***

 

Kaoru didn't know what he expected to happen once they got home, but it wasn't their normal bedtime routine. Except that's exactly what he got. Brush teeth, prep clothes and schoolbooks for the next day, strip down to boxers, push and shove and wrestle until they settled into the position they always slept in, and then listen to Hikaru's breathing as he fell asleep.

As though nothing was different.

 _Don't say anything._ Maybe nothing was different. Maybe Kaoru was making a big deal out of nothing. _Don't. Say. Anything._

"Hikaru?" Kaoru said.

"Mm?"

"What are we doing?"

"Well, some of us are trying to sleep," Hikaru mumbled into his pillow.

Kaoru plucked at a loose thread sticking out of the seam of his pillowcase. "No. I mean... today. The shower. When we... what are we _doing?_ "

Hikaru twisted his head enough to crack one eye and look at Kaoru. "Hey, you're the one who called me into the bathroom, remember?"

Kaoru stared at him. He felt as cold as if he was standing naked at the Shiodome. And then anger flushed through him, hot and ugly. He sat up and shoved Hikaru's arms away. "Are you serious? You're putting this on me? What about the past _month?_ What have we been doing all this time?"

Hikaru sat up too, leaning away from Kaoru's outburst. "That... that was... just another act. Pretend."

"So we were pretending that I was giving you hand jobs?"

Hikaru's chin tucked to his chest. "No. It was just... helping out. It's not a big deal."

"It's fucking." Kaoru slammed his fist into his pillow for emphasis. Hikaru flinched. "We were fucking. We've been fucking. We're lovers, Hikaru. Not for pretend. For real. For weeks."

Hikaru wouldn't look at him. "We can't be."

Kaoru grabbed his chin and forced him to look. To face the truth. To face him. "Well it's a little late for that. We are."

"No, we can't!" Hikaru shouted, striking Kaoru's hand away. "Why are you being like this? It's okay as long as it's pretend. Why are you making it... wrong? Why are you ruining it?"

"You really believe that?" Kaoru studied Hikaru for some sign that this was a joke, a game. But there were tears in Hikaru's eyes, and he was trembling. Kaoru's hands balled into fists to keep from striking out at Hikaru's... _blindness._ He resorted to using his words instead. "It isn't our fucking that will tear us apart, and it's not me calling it what it is. It's the lying to ourselves about it."

"No! We can't. Be. Lovers. It's wrong." Hikaru scrubbed away his tears, face twisting into anger. No, into reflected disgust. "That's the whole point of the game. That's why they like it. Because it's wrong."

That part was true, at least. The whole allure of their brotherly love act was that it was forbidden. Even so... "Says who?"

"Everyone!" Hikaru shouted.

Kaoru lifted a hand to brush his brother's knee. "Since when do we care what everyone thinks?"

"Don't touch me!" Hikaru shoved Kaoru away and scrambled out of bed. He stood in the darkness, hugging himself, breathing hard. Shivering. Kaoru sat on his knees, wanting to reach out, to soothe... but it was too late. He'd spoken, and his own words had broken Hikaru's spell.

Had broken... them.

"I'm sorry, Hikaru," Kaoru whispered.

"You should be," Hikaru snarled. He snatched his pillow from the bed. "I'll find somewhere else to sleep."

He stalked out of their room, slamming the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! I promise I won't leave them like this :)


	6. Chapter 6

Kaoru didn't see Hikaru again until class the next morning. He'd left home before Kaoru even woke up, and he didn't show up until class had almost started, making speaking impossible. He didn't even try to hide from the rest of the world that there was some sort of conflict between the Hitachiin twins. He left as soon as class was over, and he disappeared completely during lunch.

Things continued to fall apart the moment rehearsal started.

"Where's Rika?" Hikaru spat when the girls assembled in Music Room #1 for warm-ups and he noticed the space in their lines.

"Um... she wasn't feeling well," said Mizu-umi. "So she thought it would be better if she didn't come and get everyone sick."

"Then she's out."

"Hikaru!" Kaoru said. It was fine for Hikaru to be mad at him, but not to take it out on their girls.

"If she can't do her part, then she's off the team. We don't have time or room for weakness."

Rika's expulsion started the domino chain. Mizu-umi, who had been Rika's friend before the formation of Green Team, left with a soft, but firm, "Then I'm off the team, too." By the time rehearsal ended, Hikaru's cutting critiques had taken them from twenty girls down to ten.

 "Agh! This is impossible!" he ranted, pulling on his hair and pacing before the cowering and cowed remains of their once-solid team. "We're going to have to reblock the staging, the lights... the harmonies are all off-balance now..."

The few times Kaoru had tried to mitigate Hikaru's viciousness during rehearsal had only made Hikaru worse, so Kaoru had kept his mouth shut, but maybe now that Hikaru saw the damage his anger was causing... "Hikaru, maybe you should—'

"Shut. Up. Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up! I'm not the problem. They are! And if you can't support me, then you're part of the problem, too. You're off the team."

The entire room gasped. Except for Kaoru. He couldn't seem to find his breath.

A few of the girls voiced soft protests: "No," and "You can't," and "We'll do better, senpai."

Hikaru ignored them. "You know what? Forget it. Stay if you want. I'm out."

 

***

 

Kaoru didn't remember leaving school or how exactly he'd gotten home. He vaguely recalled some of the girls helping. When he emerged from his fugue state, he was sitting on his and Hikaru's bed, staring at their door, books strewn around as though he'd actually been trying to study. When he checked with the housemaids, they told him that Hikaru had gone to stay in their mother's apartment downtown. Kaoru considered going, considered calling, but stopped himself after sending a single text: _I'm here when you're ready to talk._

Then he began calling the girls, starting with the ones who'd quit.

He skipped Host Club the next day and met the girls in Music Room #1. They were quiet. Subdued. It was clear that those who had been present for Hikaru's blow up had briefed those who'd walked or run out early. They all watched Kaoru with sad eyes and downturned mouths. Rika in particular seemed determined to blame herself for the falling out.

"It's not your fault," Kaoru told her. Told all of them as they made a half-hearted attempt to run through their rehearsal. "It's not anyone else's fault. It's mine. He's mad at me. I'm sorry."

Even with all the girls back and trying their hardest, the act was in dismal shape without Hikaru's energy guiding their way. Over the next several days, Kaoru exhausted himself trying to be both of them, and it still wasn't enough.

Haruhi met Kaoru outside Music Room #1 on the last day of rehearsal. Kaoru wished he had smidgeon of Hikaru's meanness to deploy against Haruhi's concern, but even if he did, he was too tired to unleash it.

Haruhi followed him out of the main building and across the frostbitten grounds. Their path left green footprints across the quad.

"That's two Host Club days that you and Hikaru have been out for. We've missed you. I've missed you."

It was the first Kaoru'd heard that Hikaru also wasn't going to club, though in retrospect he wasn't surprised. "We... I've been busy with rehearsals."

"I'm not an idiot, Kaoru." She stopped where the path broke around the clock tower, searching him as though the explanation was written on his face. "So, what's gotten between you two?

Kaoru didn't answer. He couldn't tell the truth and still hadn't come up with a plausible lie.

"Because if this is one of your guys' fighting acts, it's got to stop. You're hurting a lot of people."

He looked up at the clock face, blinking. It was too cold for tears. "It's not an act," he said, watching her from the corner of his eyes. "That's the problem. It stopped being an act."

"Oh," she said, frowning in puzzlement. And then her brows rose and her mouth fell open. "OH!"

"Yeah." His voice wavered. He wanted to be sick. Not out of shame for what he and Hikaru had done—he still had trouble seeing anything wrong with it—but fear over what Haruhi would think. He headed her off, expressing it before she could. "Pretty disgusting, I guess."

Haruhi shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I've had a year to get over any possible disgust. And after Honey and Mori, I don't know that anything can really shock me anymore."

He gaped at her. He could barely believe that she'd reacted with a shrug and common sense, even though it was Haruhi, who wielded common sense like Tamaki wielded drama. And then the rest of what she'd said registered. "Honey and Mori?"

"Mm." She wrinkled her nose in an expression too cute to be real disgust. "You don't want to know. So, what are you going to do?"

If Hikaru were there, they wouldn't let that thread drop. They'd bat at it like cats until Haruhi unraveled and revealed all. But without Hikaru, Kaoru just couldn't bring himself to care. "I don't know. I don't know that I can do anything. Hi-hikaru won't talk to me. I'm the problem. Because I won't pretend."

Haruhi snorted and muttered something that sounds like 'you boys' as she dug out her the cell phone they'd made her take. "Well, why don't you tell me where can I find him and we'll see if the idiot will talk to me."

 

***

 

 

Kaoru learned his first night alone that he couldn't sleep in the huge bed without Hikaru tangled up with him. It was too big, too cold no matter how many blankets he piled on. He'd taken to dragging the bedding onto the floor and sleeping huddled in a cocoon of misery. When he was able to sleep at all instead of staring at the ceiling and resisting the urge to call Hikaru or text him.

The night of his conversation with Haruhi was the worst since that first night. Kaoru stared at his phone, willing it to ring. Willing for her to break through where he had not. His phone stayed stubbornly, infuriatingly silent. Kaoru finally threw it across the room and burrowed into his blankets, wishing the entire world away if only Hikaru would come back. Why the fuck had he opened his stupid mouth?

Kaoru had finally managed to nod off when something kicked him and fell across him with a loud yelp. Kaoru grabbed the first weapon to hand—his pillow—and swung it at the intruder.

The intruder caught it, ripped it out of Kaoru's hand, and flung it over the bed. "Ow! Hey! Kaoru. It's me. What the fuck are you doing on the floor?"

Kaoru stopped kicking wildly. "Hikaru?"

"Yeah. Who did you think it was?" The bedside lamp flicked on. Hikaru loomed over him, scowling.

Kaoru fought the urge to fling himself at his brother and apologize, to say that Hikaru had been right and that Kaoru was willing to accept any lie that Hikaru needed to tell to stay sane. He clutched his blankets tight against a sudden chill at how close he was to desperation. "I don't know. It was dark. I didn't expect you here."

"It's my bedroom too."

Kaoru wished he had another pillow to throw. "You've been gone all week."

Hikaru perched on their bed, fingers clenching white on the edge. "Yeah. I'm sorry about that. I needed... your text said to come when I was ready to talk."

"I sent that on Monday."

"So you don't mean it anymore?"

Kaoru looked down at his body wrapped in blankets like armor. He hadn't sent another text because the first was the only one needed. "No, I still mean it. So talk."

Hikaru nodded... and remained silent. He toyed with the stitching of his sweater, pulling on a thread until it started to unravel. Kaoru's fingers itched to stop him, but it was a hideous sweater, red with a lumpy, unidentified creature woven through in white that could as easily have been a kaiju as a reindeer. Hikaru's whole outfit was kind of a mess. And his hair looked like he'd used his fingers to comb it. What had he been doing to himself all week?

"Haruhi said—" they started at the same time. A bit of incoherent mumbling followed as they struggled for conversational dominance.

Kaoru won. "You spoke to her?" he asked, hopeful, and quashing down on a tiny surge of resentment that she'd been the one to break through to him.

"So did you," Hikaru said, crossing his arms.

"She was pestering me about you."

Hikaru's defensive posed relaxed. He smiled ruefully. "Yeah. She did more than pester me. She yelled."

Kaoru tried not to grin at the image. "She must have looked so cute."

Hikaru did grin. "She did. We can never let her know."

Kaoru held up his pinkie without thinking.

Hikaru stared at the finger, at Kaoru, for several long breaths. Long enough for Kaoru's hand to start trembling, and yet still he held it up.

Kneeling before Kaoru, Hikaru tugged the frayed thread free of his sweater. He hooked his finger around Kaoru's and twined the thread around their linked pinkies. Red. Kaoru shivered.

And then they were hugging, blankets crushed between them, faces buried in each other's shoulders. Kaoru turned his head, nose pressed to his brother's hair. The scent settled the churning in his gut. He breathed in, deeper and deeper, letting that smell flood through him and make everything right.

"You must be cold. Here," Hikaru said, lifting the blankets around Kaoru's bare shoulders. Kaoru hadn't realized they'd slipped.

He shook his head and wrapped his blankets around Hikaru, too. "'Mm not." For the first time in days, he wasn't cold. "Hikaru, I'm so sorry. I should have said no that first day. I shouldn't have let it keep happening."

"I'm glad you did. Didn't. Whatever." Hikaru pulled away, cupping the back of Kaoru's head so he was forced to look. "I went along with the act because having you for pretend was better than not having you at all. I never pushed because I didn't want to pressure you into anything. And you never invited anything, so I thought it was just me who wanted it to be real. And then we switched and suddenly I could ask for what I wanted. And you said yes. And then we switched back and I..."

"Got confused," Kaoru murmured, astonished at just how confused they'd both been. They'd gotten so used to not talking—to not needing to talk—that they'd stopped even when it was needful.

Hikaru released his hold to stroke Kaoru's cheek. "I'm not sorry we became lovers. You were right: I don't care what the rest of the world thinks."

Kaoru felt lightheaded, possibly because he was forgetting to breathe. He drew it in on a gasp. "Hikaru?"

"Haruhi doesn't have a problem with it. The others won't either, I think. They're the only ones who matter. So long as you're not sorry, I don't see why we should have to pretend."

Kaoru pressed his cheek to Hikaru's hand. "I'm not sorry. Except for the part where I didn't say something sooner. After all, think of all the clients we'd book if I could do this." He turned his face so that his lips brushed Hikaru's palm, smirking at the sharp intake of breath that followed.

Hikaru's fingers dug into Kaoru's hair, fisting tight enough to make Kaoru's scalp tingle. "And really, what's wrong with a little brotherly love, act or not?" Hikaru asked, using his weight to bear Kaoru down into the mess of bedding. He settled between Kaoru's spread legs, trapped his hands above his head. His lips against Kaoru's ear made every breathy word a shiver that pulsed straight down to Kaoru's groin. "I mean, it's not like we could have kids together." Hikaru shifted his hips, a long, hard grind of his cock against Kaoru's. "No matter how often I fuck you."

Kaoru squeezed his eyes shut. Slid his heel around Hikaru's ass to press him down even harder.

"May I? Fuck you?" Something hot and wet lapped Kaoru's earlobe, and then it was sucking, and then biting.

"Ggglhuggh," Kaoru managed, which he hoped was a word in some language or another. Welsh, maybe? He was usually so good at languages.

Hikaru's bites traveled down his neck. "Was that a yes?"

"Yes!"

"Good." He released Kaoru's hands, lips coming to rest at the bend above Kaoru's collarbone.

Kaoru tilted his head, threaded his fingers through Hikaru's hair. "No hickeys," he said, wishing he had the will to push Hikaru's head away instead of pulling it closer, but it just felt so good.

Hikaru released him, lapping at the spot he'd been sucking. "Too late. Sorry. I owed you one. Think of it as marking you as mine. Property of Hickey-ru." He kissed the spot and moved lower, following a trail set by his hands—hand that were already tugging down the waistband of Kaoru's boxers.

"I'll get you back."

Hikaru stopped kissing long enough to prop his chin atop Kaoru's abdomen. "You can suck on any part of me you want. Anywhere. Anytime."

Kaoru gazed down at Hikaru, at the open love and hunger on his face, and wondered if his reflected those same feelings. He suspected not. He felt a little more on the slack-jawed, glassy-eyed side of things.

Whatever Hikaru saw made him grin with the beginnings of mischief. "Hold that thought." He set his lips to Kaoru's belly, pinning him in place with a long, loud, and damned ticklish raspberry. He left while Kaoru was still kicking and giggling and was back before Kaoru had quite got his breath.

Back. And naked. The lamplight warmed his skin to gold and shadowed his lean muscles. His hair was a spiky mess. Kaoru had done that. He looked up at his brother and smirked. "I hope you burned that outfit."

Hikaru laughed and knelt between Kaoru's legs. He set the lube to one side, warming a generous dollop in his hands. "Everyone's a fashion critic. You. Haruhi."

"If even Haruhi noticed how bad that outfit was, I'm surprised you went out in it."

"I had to get back to you."

Kaoru's heart squeezed at those words, at the look on his brother's face. "Hikaru."

And then Hikaru leaned over and pressed his lips to the head of Kaoru's cock, and Kaoru was gasping his name for a very different reason.

Hikaru pushed Kaoru's foreskin down with lube-slick fingers, his mouth following the path. Kaoru watched his ginger head lift up, descend. He watched his cock slide between Hikaru's lips. Couldn't get enough of watching, even when Hikaru cupped his balls, when one finger, then a second, slid into his ass. Hikaru glanced up, caught Kaoru watching. Watched back. And it was nothing like looking in a mirror. Kaoru had spent a week by himself, without Hikaru to complement him. If he ever wondered whether everyone else was right that they were the same, he knew deep in his soul now that it wasn't true. He wouldn't have felt so very alone if it was.

Hikaru raised up far enough that Kaoru's cock popped free of his lips and bounced against his saliva-wet chin. "You make the cutest sounds when I'm sucking you off," he said, lips brushing against the head in a way that tickled so much it almost hurt. His shoulders and arms still moved as he worked his fingers inside Kaoru, but he held his head still. Watching Kaoru.

"Cute maybe, but I bet they're not as hot as the sounds you make when you've got a mouthful of my cock."

Hikaru choked. Laughed. A laugh Kaoru felt all the way down to the fingers inside him. He lost a few moments to the surge of pleasure from that.

"—game out of that. Who can make the hottest sex sounds? How would we even judge?"

"Hngh?" Kaoru asked. Hikaru was nipping at his cock with little kisses. Kaoru hit his shoulder impatiently. "Are you going to fuck me already?"

Hikaru stopped laughing. It was his turn to go a bit slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. "Y-yeah. Yeah, I can do that." He slid his fingers out of Kaoru's ass. There were a few quiet moments while he wiped his hands clean, rolled on a condom. Moments where Kaoru could still stop this, before the real line was crossed. The only line that people seemed to care about.

Except the real line between Hikaru and Kaoru had never existed. They'd always loved each other. Fiercely. Exclusively. A love so total and unreserved that it had shut people out, become twisted. Now it was different. They had friends, friends who might even accept this. And they didn't struggle so hard to be each other's everything.

Sometimes, they even miscommunicated and had un-staged fights.

"Ready?" Hikaru breathed, lifting Kaoru's thighs over his.

Kaoru smiled up at him, brushed fingers over his lower lip. "Yeah."

There was a big difference between fingers and a cock, Kaoru realized as Hikaru nudged inside him, pressing through the tight anal ring. And it didn't have anything to do with size. Kaoru breathed deeply, striving for relaxation. Each shift of Hikaru's hips took him a little deeper. Each shift drew another sound—something between a whimper and a moan—from Kaoru's throat. His hands dropped to Hikaru's forearms, fingers flexing, nails not quite digging. Hikaru was breathing hard, too, though the noises he made were harsher. More guttural. As though he was the one pushing the edge of pain.

"Your. Sounds. Are. Hotter," Kaoru said between breaths, catching Hikaru each time he withdrew.

"Gngh. Fuck. You. Don't make me laugh," Hikaru grunted. His arms were shaking from supporting himself, from going slow.

Kaoru wrapped his legs around Hikaru's hips. "It's okay to go deep. You're not going to tear me apart."

"Hnggh," Hikaru responded, but the next stroke didn't stop short. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Hikaru filled him. He let his weight sink down. Kaoru slid his arms to Hikaru's shoulders, holding him close as he trembled.

"You didn't yet, did you?" Kaoru asked. He thought it was the sort of thing you were supposed to feel, but what the hell did he know?

Even his words seemed to send a new wave of trembles wracking through Hikaru's body. "No. Just. Close. Gimme... don't move."

Kaoru held very still, or as still as he could when all he wanted to do was slam his ass down on his brother's cock. His own cock, trapped between their heated, sweaty bodies, pulsed and twitched, as impatient as he was.

"Okay. 'Mm okay now," Hikaru muttered, rousing to trail little kisses down Kaoru's jaw. He lifted onto his elbows, rolling his hips, and just like that, Kaoru felt stretched again, almost too full. He canted his hips, tried to spread his legs wider. Invite more.

And Hikaru tried to give it to him.

It was awkward. They lost rhythm. Twice, Hikaru fell out and Kaoru shouted incoherent impatience at him until he got it back in and resumed slamming away. Every so often, the noises they made fell more on the silly side than the sexy, and they couldn't help but recreate them mockingly, blowing raspberries on whatever bit of the other's flesh came to mouth. Kaoru was quite sure that in the future, all Hikaru would need to do to make him hard was make that strange flesh-slapping fart noise that their bellies made every time they pressed together too hard for too long.

Twice, they slowed down to let Hikaru regain control of himself. Kaoru realized early on that with just a shift of his hips he could treat himself to the feeling of Hikaru's cock sliding along his prostate. He denied himself that. He'd made a promise to draw it out, make it last. And he intended to keep it.

However, he was reaching the limits of control when Hikaru slowed a third time. "Don't stop," he whispered, lifting his hips as much as he could. He tapped Hikaru's arm. "Lift my leg."

Hikaru struggled to comply—almost sliding out of Kaoru again—and managed to hook his arm under Kaoru's knee.

The next time he surged in, he went deep enough that Kaoru could feel Hikaru's balls slapping his ass. Kaoru's cry mingled with Hikaru's and everything—humor, teasing, silliness—fell away in their frantic rush to complete one another. Kaoru couldn't say which one of them started coming first. Something else for them to fight over and tease about. He held Hikaru tight, as tight as their position allowed, and pressed his cheek to Hikaru's as they both shuddered themselves limp.

Hikaru let Kaoru's leg slide to a less contortionist position and sagged deadweight atop him—for all of two seconds before he gasped and tried to pull away.

Kaoru held him in place. "Stay."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"And I don't want to let you go." Kaoru's voice wavered as the ache rose from his bones and infused his muscles and skin. "Just. Hold. Very. Still."

It was an exercise in exquisite torture, and Kaoru grit his teeth through every aching moment of it. Every breath Hikaru expelled, every twitch of his cock as it softened inside Kaoru, even the beating of his heart against Kaoru's chest, they all awoke sensations so intense that all Kaoru wanted to do was kick and thrash and thrust Hikaru away.

And then, slowly, they faded. Kaoru relaxed, limp with exhaustion. Something tentatively touched his brow, stroked his sweat-damp hair back. He opened his eyes.

"You're a little twisted, you know that?" Hikaru said, smiling fondly down at him.

Kaoru made a face, albeit a half-hearted one. "Yeah. Well. We're identical, so what does that make you?"

 

***

 

Green Team did not win the Battle of the Girl Groups, which, given the last week of rehearsals, was no surprise. They did come in a distant second, which would have been more of a surprise except that Red Team had all come down with the flu and Gold Team had, in a move that baffled everyone, literally done the Hokey Pokey.

"I'm really sorry, everyone," Hikaru said, not his first apology of the day by any means. He and Kaoru had arrived at Music Room #1 before the battle—now Green Team's green room—abasing themselves. Hikaru had apologized to every one of Their Girls, starting with Rika.

And the girls had been so happy to see Our Boys back together that they'd forgiven everything with smiles and tears.

Still, even the greatest forgiveness and the strongest will to _ganbatte_ couldn't make up for a week of half-hearted work. It was with bittersweet enthusiasm that Hikaru, Kaoru, and Green Team headed back to Music Room #1 to clean up and gather their things.

"We're just happy you two made up," one of the girls said, and another, "We would never have been happy again, knowing we caused you to fight," followed by a chorus of agreements and sighs.

Hikaru stopped outside the music room door. He'd barely left Kaoru's side or removed his arm from around Kaoru's waist since they crawled out of bed that morning. Or rather, the nest of blankets and pillows that they'd used as a bed. Now, he turned to face Kaoru and pulled him close, just as he'd done hundreds of times since they joined the Host Club and started their act. Kaoru wondered if the girls felt the difference today if they noticed the heat that sparked when Hikaru looked down at him like that. When his lips parted like that. When Kaoru's lips parted in response.

All that fucking last night and more in the shower this morning, and they'd forgotten to kiss. But Hikaru wasn't... he wouldn't... Not now. Not in front of everyone. Would he?

Apparently not. "Nobody's happier than I am," he whispered. "I'm sorry I abandoned you, Kaoru."

"You're back now, Hikaru. That's what matters." Kaoru ducked his head, trying not to be disappointed. Everything Hikaru had given him and he was still greedy for more. He bit his lower lip to stop it from trembling.

"I'll make it up to you, Kaoru. I promise. Every day and..." Hikaru's breath tickled Kaoru's ear, making him gasp and arch into his brother. "... Night."

The girls melted over each other in pulsing, squealing puddles of moe. Hikaru smirked and winked at Kaoru before turning to face them. "I'll make it up to all of you. Green Team, we may not have won today, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate!"

He threw open the door, and a swirl of rose petals drifted out. Inside, the room had been transformed. Blue lights twinkled in cascades from the ceiling and swirls across the floor, the Shiodome illuminations in miniature. A man waited to offer the astonished ladies of Green Team hot cocoa and corn potage as they entered. And in the center of the transformed room, a long banquet table was set with white linens and blue LED candelabra. Kaoru's belly rumbled as the smell of KFC reached his nose.

The girls flooded into the room, scattered in pairs, exclaiming over a display here, a spray of light there, leaving Hikaru and Kaoru in their own private bubble of space near the door.

"Hikaru... how... when?"

"I reserved the KFC back when Tamaki first announced the contest. You know..." Hikaru grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "When I was being you."

"Considerate, you mean?"

Hikaru made a face. "That too. I didn't want our girls to be disappointed on the off-chance we lost."

"And the lights?" Kaoru couldn't help but notice that some of them looked familiar. The pumpkin patch that was being retired. Hikaru had saved it and brought it here. For them. For him.

"A bit more last minute. Fair warning, we owe Kyouya. Big time."

"We?"

Hikaru pulled Kaoru close. With the girls all distracted, there was nothing performative about this embrace. "You'd leave me to pay him back alone?"

"I guess not."

"You know, speaking of Kyouya, you still owe me. For guessing."

"I guess I do. What do you want?" Kaoru breathed, watching Hikaru's lips. Wanting. Hoping.

"Everything," Hikaru said, lifting Kaoru's chin. "But for now, I'll take this."

Hikaru's lips met Kaoru's. A whisper of gasps and squeals rose like a rainstorm, but Kaoru barely heard them. He slid his arms around Hikaru's shoulders and kissed him right back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering, I do have the Haruhi-goes-to-beat-sense-into-Hikaru scene written, but I will be posting it as part of Haruhi's fic. I'll hyperlink it here when I do.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to kurayami_hime for being my culture and language sounding board and general beta.


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